Avoid cliches like the plague. They are old hat.

Be more or less specific.

Avoid alliteration always.

It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.

Who needs rhetorical questions?

Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.

The Star causes a sensation when he comes out and announces he is, in fact, gay. He pleads for understanding. At first there is shock but it gives way to acceptance.

He appears on The Footy Show where, uncomfortable but sincere, legends of the game applaud his courage and denounce homophobia. Press coverage is uniformly supportive.


The Bloke causes a sensation when, during a boozy speech at the club presentation night, he comes out and announces he is, in fact, gay. He pleads for understanding. At first there is shock but it gives way to calls for a lynching.

Words such as courageous, trailblazer and role model are thin on the ground, while more traditional terms such as shirtlifter, pillow biter and bum bandit get a good run.

He is booted out of the team. Local authorities launch a police investigation into his role as coach of the Under Sevens.

... is how Coca-Cola translates into Chinese. Sometimes the corps screw up on their branding. Big style. For example, General Motors launched the Chevrolet Nova into the South American market. No va is Spanish for 'it doesn't go', so it was later sold in Spanish-speaking countries as the 'Caribe'.

Oh, but it was even worse for Ford when they decided to sell their popular 'Pinto' model in Brazil. Nobody told the hapless suits that Pinto is Brazilian slang for a very small penis.

Gulf Oil launched its No-Nox brand of petrol in Indonesia, not realising that in one of the country's languages it sounds just like the slang for female genitalia.

When Coca-Cola was launched in China, its name was rendered phonetically as 'ke-kouke-la'. They made the billboards, booked the ad space... and found that depending on which language you're speaking, the Chinese characters mean 'female horse stuffed with wax' or 'bite the wax tadpole'. The chastened suits changed it to 'Ko-kou-ko-le', which means, approximately, 'happiness in the mouth'.

But Pepsi's experience in Taiwan in the Sixties was legendary. Pepsi's slogan at the time, 'Come Alive With the Pepsi Generation' got translated into Mandarin as 'Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the dead'.

Even further back in the mists of time, the Parker Pen company was flogging pens in Mexico, using a translation of its slogan, 'It won't leak in your pocket and embarrass you'. Somewhere along the line, a hapless suit read his dictionary wrong, so that in Spanish the slogan came out as, 'It won't leak in your pocket and make you pregnant'. Well, no.

Also in South America, the now defunct American airline Braniff was keen to promote the seating in business class with 'Fly in leather with three more inches'. That's leather seating and extra leg room. In Spanish it came out as 'Fly naked with three more inches'. Way-hey!

Spanish again: the American Coors Beer – the stupid, meaningless English slogan, 'Turn it Loose!'; the Spanish translation, 'Suffer from diarrhoea!'

Mistt in German is slang for excrement. Clairol's 'Mist Stick' hair-curlers didn't sell too well in Germany. Nor did Irish Mist.

Of course, English, with all its nuances and double meanings can cause as many problems. The Scandinavian manufacturer of vacuum cleaners got its fingers burned when it went into the American market with 'Nothing sucks like an Electrolux'.

And there are plenty of foreign brands you'll not see here...

Crapsy Fruit	(France)	breakfast cereal		Dribly	(Italy)	lemonade
Pschitt!	(France)	lemonade		Gammon	(Holland)	aftershave
Kevin	(France)	aftershave		Glans	(Holland)	shampoo
Plopp	(Sweden)	chocolate		Poo	(Argentina)	curry powder
Bums	(Sweden)	biscuits		Pee Cola	(Ghana)	soft drink
Nora Knackers	(Sweden)	crackers		Cock Drops	(Cyprus)	cocktail bitters
Kack	(Denmark)	sweets		Zit	(Greece)	lemonade
Krapp	(Denmark)	toilet tissue		Super Piss	(Finland)	de-icer
Mukk	(Italy)	yoghurt		Arcelik	(Turkey)	domestic appliances

Wendy and Harry Virco, left, and Gloria and Jim Brindle.
LONDON: There was nothing terribly complicated about the life of Harry Virco, 28, and his wife Wendy, 21... until his big sister Gloria married for the second time.

For Gloria married his wife's father, widower Jim Brindle.

And right away that made sister Gloria Harry's mother-in-law. By the same token, Wendy's father also became her own brother-in-law. Now Wendy wonders whether her husband is also he Uncle Harry. After all, she is the daughter of the man who married her husband's sister!

As Harry, of South Preston, Lancashire, put it: "I've even worked out that sister Gloria is her own mother-in-law – I think..."