Meta: the new Facebook name ridiculed by the Jews

Facebook’s announcement that it is changing its name to Meta has caused quite a stir in Israel, where the word sounds like this for “dead”.

To be precise, Meta is pronounced as the feminine form of the Hebrew word.

Several people took to Twitter to share their interpretation of the name with the hashtag #FacebookDead.

Zaka emergency relief volunteers were also involved, telling their Twitter followers: “Don’t worry, here we are.”

Another Twitter user said: “Thank you for providing everyone who speaks Hebrew with a good reason to laugh.”

Facebook isn’t the only company to be ridiculed for translations of its brand.

Here are some examples of when things got lost in translation.

When KFC first came to China in the 1980s, its “finger lickin ‘good” motto didn’t exactly appeal to the locals.

The translation of the motto in Mandarin was “eat your fingers”.

But it didn’t hurt the company too much. KFC is one of the largest fast food chains in the country.

Rolls-Royce changed the name of its Silver Mist car as fog translates as “excrement” in German.

The car was instead named Silver Shadow.

Meanwhile, when Nokia released its Lumia phone in 2011, it didn’t exactly get the reaction it expected.

In Spanish, Lumia is synonymous with prostitute, albeit apparently it appears only in dialects with a strong Gypsy influence.

However, Honda had a lucky escape. He almost called his new car Fitta, which is a vulgar description for vagina in Swedish. Apparently it didn’t translate well into a number of other languages.

Apparently the problem was detected early and the decision was made to name the vehicle Jazz in most countries.