A new shop opened up in a local mall. As soon as the sign went up, the authorities were called and the police raided the shop.
Years ago, Mojo worked on a project selling motor lube oil in Saudi Arabia. His research brought him to the buncture shops, as the small car repair garages are called.
He couldn’t figure out what buncture meant and finally asked one of the managers.
The man looked at him like he was so naïve. “When you get a nail in your tire, you get buncture. You take it to the buncture shop for fixing.”
Oh – the Puncture Shop. There is no P in Arabic so P comes out B.
The shop’s owner explained the sign was not what she ordered.
The male sign maker was certain he was smarter than the female shop owner. He knew when she ordered “Born Fashion” it should really be spelled “Porn Fashion” in English.
Tales of Dragons, Rabbits and Roosters 
Jun 07, 2012 @ 12:03:22
Yes this is a cute little story and the explanation is plausible … but somehow think of all that wonderful free publicity – and the get-out-of-jail-free explanation and you start to wonder. The power of porn, the world over leaves you really wondering whether there is anyone in this world who doesn’t know what ‘porn’ is. how do you spell cynic?
Jun 07, 2012 @ 13:17:58
Well, we might have to spell “cynic” as “cy-peppinin-ic” because we Aramcobrats always long had a joke about “Bepsi and Bineapple Bie” … It doesn’t surprise me that the printer thought he was smarter than the shop owner . 1.)for gender-bias reasons and 2.)because there are many examples of mis-transliteration here in Japanese as well (too detailed to explain) that I understand, sometimes “porn” just happens!
Jun 07, 2012 @ 13:30:17
(sorry, one too many ‘in’ s… that should read “cy-peppin-ic” !)
Jun 07, 2012 @ 14:11:35
This is very funny! Thank you for giving me a laugh after a tough day in the office.
Jun 07, 2012 @ 15:45:18
My husband sadly has never been able to pronounce his P’s or has got the B & P completely mixed up. As Eva pointed out, there is no P in the Arabic alphabet. You can imagine the laughs we had when he asked me to prepare a few “nipples” for everyone to eat with their drinks!
Jun 07, 2012 @ 19:12:29
Ha ha, that’s brilliant. So all becomes clear re the nipples, porn and bunctures, but can anyone tell me why a ‘b’ was inserted in samoosas to make them samboosas? I’m told it’s the pronunciation but don’t really get that. Then there’s the extra ‘o’ in salon that comes with the promise of a beer with your shave or glass of chardonnay with your shampoo and blowdry as you get at certain chi-chi salons in Johannesburg and London. I guess that’s because of the lack of a letter ‘o’ as in ‘on’, and there are more. Could make for an interesting glossary.
Jun 08, 2012 @ 05:24:24
“Nipples with drinks”!!! I bet all the men loved that! Tooooofunny…
Jun 08, 2012 @ 09:59:12
The fun the fun of cross-cultural chat