Microsoft Nova's Their Bing
Jul. 8th, 2009 08:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
peristaltorAh, you can't get away from Microsoft's promotion of their new search engine Bing, can you? According to Patrick Cox of PRI's The World in Words podcast, Microsoft's Chief Exec hoped the name would "verb up," presumably to become a verb much as Google has over the years.
They might not have chosen wisely, though. Cox continued to note that Bing has many different meanings in Chinese (presumably Mandarin), but the meaning of "the fourth tone . . . means 'sickness.'
"It actually gets worse," Cox continues. "If you add another character to it, du -- so it would be bing du -- that means virus."
Nice one, Redmond. Is this another example of subtle truth in advertising like Wall Mart's Assterisk, or a complete oversight boner? Either way, it's Puerto Rico's Chevy Nova all over again: It doesn't go.
They might not have chosen wisely, though. Cox continued to note that Bing has many different meanings in Chinese (presumably Mandarin), but the meaning of "the fourth tone . . . means 'sickness.'
"It actually gets worse," Cox continues. "If you add another character to it, du -- so it would be bing du -- that means virus."
Nice one, Redmond. Is this another example of subtle truth in advertising like Wall Mart's Assterisk, or a complete oversight boner? Either way, it's Puerto Rico's Chevy Nova all over again: It doesn't go.