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Sent from: vulpine@gold.mv.net (Tod T. Fox)
huh uh hhuh uh, you said Dole, Beavis!
Questionable copyrights may prevent you from sending this to the list,
but I thought you all at the fringe mothership would enjoy this anyway
'the wind is a Lady with bright slender eyes(who moves)at sunset and *
who- -the hills without * Join the CDA suit! http://www.cdt.org/ciec/ *
touches any reason.' -e.e. cummings *vulpine@gold.mv.net*
*Temperance@Urban Legends (Staff)* Vulpine@SocioPoltical Ramifications (Staff)*
Forwarded-From: Christina Siun O'Connell <coco@gold.mv.net>
Forwarded-From: El Tiburon <proteios@iuc.org>
Forwarded-From: Brian A Berg <bberg@bswd.com>
Forwarded-From: Jim Warren <jwarren@well.com>
Tehran (Reuter) - For the past few weeks, the behind the doors discussion
at many Iranian newspaper and magazine publishing outfits seems to be
revolving not around political, social and economic issues, but the
spelling of Bob Dole's name instead. It turns out that the proper spelling
of the Republican Party's likely nominee, Dole, is exactly the same as that
of the word penis in Persian. "At first it might seem funny to some people,
but it's creating a serious issue for us. How can we write headlines using
that word?," said Majid Fanni, a prepress specialist at a Tehran service
bureau.
Professor Hassan Khadem, a Persian literature lecturer at New York
University added "It's actually not a real problem. In Persian, certain
vowels are optional. [Therefore] they could write his name a couple of
different ways to avoid the ambiguity. But for an exact pronunciation,
'Dowl' as opposed to 'Dol', well, they'd have to spell it that way." Fanni
explained "It's not easy. In print, especially for headlines, we don't use
[optional] vowel symbols. Because of that, his name can be read in that
way."
International organizations are quite familiar and cognizant of these types
of issues. General Motors for example, spends over 300,000 dollars a year
just researching car names to make sure they are not trade marked, as well
as being acceptable in foreign countries.
Ali Zarkoob, a grade school teacher in Western Tehran said "I'm sure kids
will find it very funny. The humor magazines will probably go crazy over it
too." A columnist for Tehran's Hamshahri daily who requested to remain
anonymous stated "It's a real problem that no one wants to face. Think
about it. What should we write if he wins? 'Clinton loses Presidency'?
That's not right. 'Penis wins US Presidency' isn't exactly acceptable
either."
M
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