Unintentional Foreign Humour

Foreign place names and words that are innocuous in their native language but hilarious in English.

What is peculiar is that English is the richest language in the world, by far. The reason is that we were invaded by so many different foreign races over the years. So how is it that we find these foreign words so amusing, how did we happen to forget that these words are perfectly inoffensive? My theory is that it's just typical British humour: another excuse to stifle a laugh at our neighbours. Yet we have words in English like 'ballcock', which don't make us laugh the way we they should, and common words like 'country' when spoken are just one syllable away from being extremely offensive. Extraordinary.

As mentioned, I'd be delighted to host a page with reciprocal humour on it. For example, is 'cricket' hilarious in any foreign language? I know that the game itself was highly offensive in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

A great example is the word 'mist' in English, which is a fine fog. In German, mist means 'crap'. So it must be absolutely hilarious for a German to hear a British weather forecaster tell the nation that 'Tomorrow, the UK will be covered in crap'. In German, 'gift' means poison - imagine the consternation as a British hotelier tells German tourists he'll give them a welcoming gift...

If you have any examples, please write to me at

Hilarious misspelt Oriental signs
Yes! Click on this link for a gut-bustingly funny set of signs. Just don't go there if you're easily offended (oh, you just know you have to click it now!). Click here to be offended!

Austrian village names
This is sourced from Private Eye of 28/10/05, which was in turn taken from the Cape Argus 19/8/05. Copyright law prevents me from sharing the original article with you.

Near Salzburg there is a village called Fucking. It was founded in the 12th century by the Fuck family and the 'ing' is a suffix meaning settlement (like 'ham' in the English 'Streatham'). Apparently the local butcher is called Herr Fuck (a descendant of the original settlers, I assume). Furthermore, there are two nearby villages called Windpassing and Wank on the Lake.

Somewhere in my archives, I do have a photograph of the sign pointing to the town of Wankum in Ghana. I may furnish the site with a copy of it in the future.

Hilarious official Dutch email
Imagine my sheer joy when  – after having run the Amsterdam Marathon recently – I received an email telling me that "U kunt uw persoonlijke foto's van deze loop verkrijgen door hierte klikken" which is a rather impolite way of telling me where to get photos of the event.

Kunstmuseum, Basel
"Oh, this isn't fair!" I hear you cry. "You can't include transpositions." Oh, really? I'm not the one doing the transposition. Some perfectly respectable academic and museum sites have already done it for me. Just type in 'Kuntsmuseum Basel' into Google and watch how many cite it.