Samsung Galaxy Tab ships with “Porn” button in Romania

Vlad Bobleanta  By on 07 Oct 10

If you speak English, one of the perks of living in a country where English isn’t an official language is laughing (sometimes uncontrollably) at translations of various things from English into your mother tongue. This is especially true of tech terms, software and manuals of different electronic equipment. It sometimes seems like companies rely on Google Translate a lot more than they should.

Today’s offender indirectly sprung from such an issue.

It turns out that the Samsung Galaxy Tab will be shipping with a Porn button in Romania.

Well, it’s not actually a button, it’s the legend for an icon, and it isn’t exactly Porn, but rather “Porn.”, but yes, it’s still funny.

Even funnier is the reason it’s there. “Pornire” in Romanian means “start” (the noun, not the verb). Someone at Samsung decided there wasn’t enough space for the whole word beneath the house icon, so went and abbreviated it. Hence, “Porn.”.

Now this is wrong on a couple of levels. First of all, touching that icon is supposed to take you to your homescreen, or let’s just say, “home” (that’s the point of that icon, isn’t it?). A more appropriate word for that in Romanian is “acasa” (though, for those who speak both Romanian and English, either possibility still sounds a bit strange).

Second, whoever decided to abbreviate “Pornire” to “Porn.”, I’m guessing, had to have some knowledge of English, even if rudimentary. So why the thing didn’t jump out in their face is beyond me. Why their supervisor didn’t see the humor in it is again inexplicable.

One way or the other, the Galaxy Tab was showcased in Romania this past weekend with the “Porn.” button on it. I wonder what Steve Jobs would say about this. If he’d be able to control his anger.

Via Mobilissimo.ro Via Tablet-News

Share on Tumblr

If you liked the post, you might find these interesting too:

  • http://zomgitscj.com/ Clinton Jeff

    That is hilarious! lol.

  • Buhlasd

    Pretty sure it says POM, not Porn

  • http://www.mobilissimo.ro Szilárd-Erwin Sz?gyényi

    It’s “Porn.”. The photo was taken by me and published on mobilissimo.ro.

  • Dan

    Well at least in Romanian we say “porno”, so “porn.” does not necesarily lead us to pornography. :) However, I’m curios why did they shorted it. In the worst case scenario, they could have used “start”. That is also a valid word, and is already used in Windows, alternatively with “Pornire”.

  • nixanbal

    St. Jobs? Wrong tablet, man

  • Alech

    Saint Jobs? Either the reality distortion field is working or you have fallen into a abbreviation trap of your own.

« »

Subscribe to our Twitter updatesVisit us on FacebookVisit us on GooglePlusSubscribe via RSS