French Language Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for students, teachers, and linguists wanting to discuss the finer points of the French language. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
Inria named a theorem proving assistant "Coq". Now, everytime an undergrad in 'Merica uses this theorem prover, they waste like 3 minutes trying not to say the name of it.
Since I cannot change the name of the (arguably) most popular theorem prover, I can only, must only, return the favor in kind.
What English noun phrases, as a potential name for software, when said in a French Academic Setting™, might make the speaker give pause or snicker?
For developers, the word string is often a source of jokes because in French un string is a thong (we'd rather use the feminine une string when talking about the code thing, though). But worst than developers joking about it, it's when non-developers are passing by and hear you talking about strings like it's normal conversation.
And there are all the bit things, since the French word bite (pronounced a bit like the English word beat) is a dick, a cock. So when talking about game consoles, especially with someone not really into it, bit sounds immediately like you're talking about a dick. So if you say a console has 16 bits, one could answer (as a joke) that it is a lot of... dicks. And you have jokes like: "Avec la nouvelle Super Nintendo, mettez 32 bits entre les mains de vos enfants", which means: "With the new Super Nes, put 32 bits (dicks) in the hands of your children".
Neither French nor English native speaker. Here are my two cents.
Face (En) and Fesse (Fr). The latter means buttock in French.
Preservative (En) and Préservatif (Fr). The latter means condom in French. Food preservative is conservateur in French.
See also here:
https://www.talkinfrench.com/french-translation-pronunciation-mistakes/
