{"id":39841,"date":"2018-09-02T15:16:02","date_gmt":"2018-09-02T20:16:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/?p=39841"},"modified":"2018-09-02T15:22:51","modified_gmt":"2018-09-02T20:22:51","slug":"annals-of-cross-linguistic-advertising-blunders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/?p=39841","title":{"rendered":"Annals of cross-linguistic advertising blunders"},"content":{"rendered":"

Or maybe it was a genius move — the coverage hasn't quantified the effect on brand recognition and sales.\u00a0 Jelisa Castrodate, \"Mountain Dew Mistakenly Tells All of Scotland to Masturbate for 'Epic Thrills'<\/a>\", Vice 8\/29\/2018:<\/p>\n

Not terribly long ago, The Scotsman<\/em> newspaper printed a helpful list<\/a> of 15 words that have alternate meanings in Scotland. It pointed out that pudding<\/em> has nothing to do with a Jell-O mix but is often a sausage made from pigs\u2019 blood, that messages<\/em> means grocery shopping, and that if you mince<\/em> something, you\u2019ve pretty much effed it up.<\/span><\/p>\n

Unfortunately, the paper failed to include chug<\/em> on the list, which is why Mountain Dew UK is being dragged across Scottish Twitter for inadvertently telling everyone that they\u2019re chronic masturbators.<\/span><\/p>\n

On Monday, Mountain Dew UK tweeted a .gif of a visibly sweating twentysomething downing a bottle of neon yellow soda. (He\u2019s tanning<\/em> it, if you want to dust off another piece of Scottish vocab.) \u201cEpic Thrills Start with a Chug,\u201d it says\u2014which is why everyone from Elgin to Dumfries started giggling to themselves.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cYou guys didn\u2019t really consult anyone from Scotland on this UK wide marketing campaign eh?\u201d one presumably Scottish person responded<\/a>. And no, no they did not: because if they did, they would\u2019ve known that \u2018chug\u2019 is slang for masturbation. (Epic thrills may or may not start out that way, but it\u2019s probably best if that\u2019s not how you try to sell a soft drink.)<\/span><\/p>\n

One of the responses<\/a>, showing the original picture:<\/p>\n

\n

A lot of people thinking @mountaindewUK<\/a> had no idea how this would be received in Scotland. While I like to think there's a disgruntled copywriter from Bathgate responsible for this beauty. pic.twitter.com\/2A9hlGrmXH<\/a><\/p>\n

— James Rolland (@jaysebro) August 27, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n