Living in Dubai exposes one to a variety of cultures and languages. It truly is the "Paris of the Middle East".
I try to keep my eyes open and look at names on businesses. I look for things that are familiar and comfortable, like Tim Horton's restaurants which are native to Canada but new to Dubai. Then sometimes my eyes light on something I cannot believe.
We drove down the Jumeirah Beach Road yesterday and I saw a designer fashion resale shop called "Garderobe". Now I know that there is a dual meaning to this word, and that one of them can mean 'closet'. But the secondary meaning of the word, the Medieval meaning of the word is equivalent to 'toilet'. So, I'm guessing that in America, if someone suggested that name for a resale shop, folks would try to talk you out of it. "Think of another name!" "That one has a meaning you don't want to imply."
Marketing textbooks are filled with cautionary tales of products that fell flat because the local language was not considered when naming something. Chevrolet had the Nova in the US and tried, unsuccessfully to market it under that name in Mexico, where 'no va' means 'won't go'.
I spent a good little while trying to decide if anyone would call their upscale boutique the Outhouse with a kind of tongue in cheek nerve, but I'm not seeing it. Maybe the folks who named that shop are not students of history and the Medieval meaning was lost on them. Either way, it's a big leap of faith.
Before you ask, I did not stop in at the Garderobe.
--Sandee Wagner
I try to keep my eyes open and look at names on businesses. I look for things that are familiar and comfortable, like Tim Horton's restaurants which are native to Canada but new to Dubai. Then sometimes my eyes light on something I cannot believe.
We drove down the Jumeirah Beach Road yesterday and I saw a designer fashion resale shop called "Garderobe". Now I know that there is a dual meaning to this word, and that one of them can mean 'closet'. But the secondary meaning of the word, the Medieval meaning of the word is equivalent to 'toilet'. So, I'm guessing that in America, if someone suggested that name for a resale shop, folks would try to talk you out of it. "Think of another name!" "That one has a meaning you don't want to imply."
Marketing textbooks are filled with cautionary tales of products that fell flat because the local language was not considered when naming something. Chevrolet had the Nova in the US and tried, unsuccessfully to market it under that name in Mexico, where 'no va' means 'won't go'.
I spent a good little while trying to decide if anyone would call their upscale boutique the Outhouse with a kind of tongue in cheek nerve, but I'm not seeing it. Maybe the folks who named that shop are not students of history and the Medieval meaning was lost on them. Either way, it's a big leap of faith.
Before you ask, I did not stop in at the Garderobe.
--Sandee Wagner
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