Prius pronunciation

[Dippy]

Not as bad as the Mitsubishi Starion, which was meant to be Stallion (in line with Colt, Lancer) but nobody told them. 

[Stivino]

2 hours ago, Dippy said:

Not as bad as the Mitsubishi Starion, which was meant to be Stallion (in line with Colt, Lancer) but nobody told them. 

Wikipedia says;

Mitsubishi says "Starion" is a contraction of "Star of Arion" — and refers to both a star and the mythical horse, Arion.

 

[Dippy]

Wikipedia, that bastion of accuracy, where data is only entered by neutral individuals. 

[QuantumFireball]

Wikipedia is only as good as the sources it cites: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability

And the Starion article refers to a few sources:

https://www.curbsideclassic.com/curbside-classics-asian/curbside-classic-1984-mitsubishi-starion-or-is-it-stallion-did-i-finally-solve-the-mystery-of-its-name/

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/a-starion-is-born/

The whole thing screams of urban legend, like how GM couldn't sell "Nova" cars in Spanish speaking countries (which is false).

[Mick F]

Nova in Spanish is "not going" in English.

Mick.

[Stivino]

2 hours ago, Mick F said:

Nova in Spanish is "not going" in English.

Mick.

Incorrect. No va means "it doesn't go"  or it's not going.  The literal tranlation is, no it goes.

Va = it goes.

No va = no it goes. (it's not going, it doesn't go)

[QuantumFireball]

15 hours ago, Mick F said:

Nova in Spanish is "not going" in English.

Mick.

The astronomical event "nova" is "nova" in Spanish. The Chevrolet Nova was sold in Latin American countries for many years, and there was a "Nova" petrol brand in Mexico that didn't have any issues related to the name. "No va" is two words and pronounced differently, and is essentially broken Spanish. It's all a myth:

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/chevrolet-nova-name-spanish/

The Opel Corsa name preceded Vauxhall's naming it the "Nova", it was totally Vauxhall's decision to name it that for the UK market and has nothing to do with Spanish speaking markets.

[Mick F]

Blame Google Translate or other online translations.

😀

 

 

 

[QuantumFireball]

Why? This myth has been doing the rounds for decades, long before the web.

[Stivino]

1 hour ago, QuantumFireball said:

Why? This myth has been doing the rounds for decades, long before the web.

The myth about the name?

[FROSTYBALLS]

As regards the Nova/Corsa, the name Nova was only used in the UK for this car, and (Opel) Corsa was used in most other European countries. An unsubstantiated claim is that Nova was used as Corsa seemed too close the 'coarser'. The fact that Nova has different meanings in other countries isn't relevant. Nova was dropped in 1993.

Chevrolet sold another model in South American countries as the Chevrolet Nova, and that sold quite well.

Vauxhall, at one time, used different names for their cars to Opel despite there being only cosmetic differences - which is why we had the Cavalier instead of Ascona, Carlton instead of Rekord, Chevette and Astra instead of Kadett, etc.

[Dippy]

Or because those names sounded and were spelled British, and the usual buyer could be found singing “Two world wars and one World Cup” on a Saturday night. 

[FROSTYBALLS]

 

52 minutes ago, Dippy said:

Or because those names sounded and were spelled British

Didn't comment on why the other names were used.

[Ten Ninety]

On 7/29/2020 at 10:14 AM, QuantumFireball said:

Wikipedia is only as good as the sources it cites: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability

And the Starion article refers to a few sources:

https://www.curbsideclassic.com/curbside-classics-asian/curbside-classic-1984-mitsubishi-starion-or-is-it-stallion-did-i-finally-solve-the-mystery-of-its-name/

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/a-starion-is-born/

The whole thing screams of urban legend, like how GM couldn't sell "Nova" cars in Spanish speaking countries (which is false).

Forgive me if I'm misunderstanding the point you're making, but the snopes article is 'undetermined' and that curbside classic article actually has interesting 'proof' that the urban legend of misinterpreting stallion is likely to be true, based on an early (and subsequently withdrawn) promotional video.

Which is more likely? An obscure name with a tangential reference to astronomy, or a rational misinterpretation by Japanese Speakers at a car company with other equine-themed car names and a very obviously faulty system for multilingual name-checking that contemporaneously managed to allow 'Pajero' through as well? Occam's razor applies, surely?

[QuantumFireball]

15 hours ago, Ten Ninety said:

Forgive me if I'm misunderstanding the point you're making, but the snopes article is 'undetermined' and that curbside classic article actually has interesting 'proof' that the urban legend of misinterpreting stallion is likely to be true, based on an early (and subsequently withdrawn) promotional video.

That article missed a key point of that ad, what is said at the start:

ヘラクレスの愛馬、アリオンが今、星になって帰ってきた

"Arion, Heracles's favourite horse, is now back as a star"

The name is star+arion, and Arion is a horse. A horse is still relevant.

I don't know where the common star+orion explanation comes from, it appears to be incorrect. Mitsubishi already had an "Orion" engine at the time, which wasn't used in this car - so it doesn't really make sense.

Yes, I think it's highly unlikely a large multinational company went ahead with production of a misspelled car, and there's enough evidence to suggest it is not the case.

This isn't the same as the "Pajero" issue at all, because that's slang in certain Spanish-speaking countries. It's not the primary meaning of the word, and not something that could be easily verified with a dictionary.

[Ten Ninety]

1 hour ago, QuantumFireball said:

Yes, I think it's highly unlikely a large multinational company went ahead with production of a misspelled car, and there's enough evidence to suggest it is not the case.

Given that large Japanese multinational companies were routinely printing instruction manuals in barely comprehensible 'Japlish' back then, I think you may be overestimating their ability to quality-assure language translations. However, Arion being a horse does explain the imagery in that advert and supports the idea that Starion may not have been an error, although the frankly bizarre contraction of 'star' and 'Arion' does lend credence to the idea that it was a conveniently invented retrospective excuse. It's also a bit odd how the horse apparently disappeared from later promotional material, although I suppose that could be for the opposite reason - perhaps they belatedly realised their intended name of 'starion' sounded like a Japanese person saying 'stallion' and they didn't want to cause further confusion. And the Mitsubishi Tredia was apparently a reference to 'three diamonds' so bizarre word contractions were obviously something they were into back then.

I'll withdraw my comment about Occam's razor. It's not that simple after all. And having found this page, I am minded to accept that Starion wasn't a mistake, but was just another in a long line of amusingly **** car names from Mitsubishi. The wildly inappropriate Carisma used to make me smile when I saw one, but there's more comedy gold in their domestic names. The Proudia, the Dignity, the Town Box or the Minica Lettuce, indeed!

[QuantumFireball]

"Starion" and "stallion" would be a homophone to a Japanese speaker, and they were probably aware of this, or were playing on this, but downplayed the association when it came to exporting due to the stereotype of "R" and "L" being swapped in Japanese. The reality is the Japanese "R" sound is somewhere in-between (think of how a Scot rolls their R's), but they do have trouble with other languages that have the two different sounds.

I know English standards generally aren't the best in Japan, so as you say manuals were often not great, but they usually put more effort into important brand names. Japanese products often get renamed for export markets if they use names that sound amusing or convoluted in other languages. Hence for example, export markets getting the Mazda "E2200" instead of "Bongo Brawny".

[Ten Ninety]

7 minutes ago, QuantumFireball said:

I know English standards generally aren't the best in Japan, so as you say manuals were often not great, but they usually put more effort into important brand names. Japanese products often get renamed for export markets if they use names that sound amusing or convoluted in other languages. Hence for example, export markets getting the Mazda "E2200" instead of "Bongo Brawny".

Was renaming for export always a thing, or did it start after the Starion / Pajero era? I wonder if the issues with those names might have prompted Japanese manufacturers to take more care with names outside of the domestic market?

To be fair, whilst I may find Mitsubishi's names amusing, their ability to communicate in English - however mangled - remains infinitely better than my ability to communicate in Japanese, so I shouldn't really laugh too hard.

[FROSTYBALLS]

Nissan sold the March as the Micra in Europe, and the UK built Bluebird was actually a Nissan Auster.

The Daihatsu Boon was sold as the Sirion in Europe. Toyota sold a rebadged version in Japan as the Passo, and Subaru in several markets as the Justy.

The Toyota Ipsum was sold in Europe as the Picnic and Avensis Verso, the Toyota Spacio as the Corolla Verso (2002-2003), the Toyota Estima as the Previa, the MR2 was sold in France as the MR, etc.

[QuantumFireball]

17 hours ago, Ten Ninety said:

Was renaming for export always a thing, or did it start after the Starion / Pajero era? I wonder if the issues with those names might have prompted Japanese manufacturers to take more care with names outside of the domestic market?

For Mitsubishi, initially there wasn't even "Mitsubishi" in some export markets like the UK and US, just "Colt". So you'd have things like a Colt Galant, and what was the first Mitsubishi Mirage in Japan was the Colt 1200/1400 in the UK.

Toyota's first small car in Europe was the 1000, a rebadged Publica, in the early '70s.

Nissan mainly used numbers for export models until the '80s, e.g. Sunny = 120Y, Bluebird = 160B, Skyline = 180K, Cedric = 280C, etc. (numbers changed with engine displacement), not to mention using the Datsun brand for most export models.

Mazda also used numbers for export models, and still do. The basic 323 - 626 - 929 lineup of the '80s was Familia - Capella - Luce in Japan. Up until 2019, the Mazda3 was the Mazda Axela in Japan but now it's the 3 globally (same for the 2 and 6).

Suzuki mostly used numbers until the mid-'80s, the first Swift (Cultus in Japan) was briefly the SA310/SA413 in Europe.

[kithmo]

I find the translation of the Mitsibushi Pajero quite funny. 🤣

Pajero meaning

[QuantumFireball]

It was supposed to be based on "Pampas cat", which is "gato pajero" in Spanish.

[Ten Ninety]

Oh well, it looks like we won't be having the joys of debating Mitsi export name origins over here for much longer:

https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/news/352852/mitsubishis-uk-exit-full-details-and-what-it-means-owners

Having owned three myself in years gone by, it's a bit of a sad end but probably preferable to seeing them struggle on trying to peddle joyless, hateful creations like the MIrage.

[QuantumFireball]

The current Mirage (Space Star in the rest of Europe, another bad name!) is essentially a car made in Thailand, for Thailand. Besides the Outlander PHEV, they've pretty much failed to make anything that suits the needs and desires of European motorists in recent years.

[MyOpinionIsWorthless]

My Friend pronounces my Prius a “Pious” because of its fuel consumption.  Lol.