Looks like Apple failed French
According our good friend Chris over at the French Mac site macgeneration, Apple’s MacBook announcements were riddled with quite a few spelling/grammatical errors, the most notable being this one.
Apparently “parfaitement con” translates to “perfect idiot” in French. Whoops!
The page has since been changed to read “parfaitement conçu”, or “perfectly designed”. Errors were also found on the Displays and MacBook Pro pages which changed their intended meanings quite a bit.
October 15th, 2008 at 7:30 pm
there were some grammar, typo and layout mistakes on the german site but nothing spectacular like this one
October 16th, 2008 at 3:54 am
Congrats on finding the “ç” key, not bad for a QWERTY-boy
October 16th, 2008 at 11:44 am
He has a Mac–oh, pardon, Maç–where the C-Cedille is as easy as Alt+C.
October 16th, 2008 at 2:16 pm
fell right on the nose
October 16th, 2008 at 2:33 pm
I thought con is the naughties word of them all.. c£&t.. ooh la laaaaa
October 16th, 2008 at 2:46 pm
Wow, looks like someone might need to go back and take a few English, I mean French classes. That’s definitely going to be a blow to Apple’s sales in France and the surrounding areas. Did someone miss the spell check?
Now this isn’t a life or death situation. I mean no one cursed or defamed the name but it does make Apple appear ignorant. Not a good way to do promotions. Maybe next time around they will get it right!?
October 16th, 2008 at 2:47 pm
@Dannybuoy: nope, there are much worse ones than that
One meaning of the word is a lady’s front bottom, but the word isn’t as rude as c£&t, just as fanny or twat isn’t.
You’ll like this, though:
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/82/262083226_7529f61148.jpg
October 16th, 2008 at 2:54 pm
I know one of the people personally responsible for French translation at Apple - she’s a meticulous person, so I am wondering what fell through the cracks here :S
October 16th, 2008 at 3:36 pm
I love the bottom one on the macgeneration.com page. “New design. New functions. New technologies. Completely designed according to criteria that are yet to be specified.”
October 16th, 2008 at 4:17 pm
Doesn’t it actually mean ‘perfectly c*nt’?
October 16th, 2008 at 5:21 pm
Ahh its just French, so what!
Jiff
http://www.privacy-tools.at.tc
October 16th, 2008 at 8:52 pm
Ce ne pas bon!
October 17th, 2008 at 1:12 am
I can hear Stevie now, “Off with their heads!”
October 17th, 2008 at 9:14 pm
Hi. I’m a PC. And I’m a Perfect Idiot