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Fucking, Austria changes name to Fugging

theguardian.com

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Re: Fucking, Austria changes name to Fugging

#241

Post by lostlogin »

IndySun wrote: post #125
krsdcbl wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's actually another village called Fugging in Lower Austria, i assume the name was chosen to keep it phonetically close to Fucking but within the linguistic boundaries of "common" village names. Also, a "Fock" is a pig in Austrian and Bavarian dialects, so "Focking" would be indicative of "pigs place" or "where the pigs are from", which hardly sounds like a desirable name for ones village.

Pigs as dirty is an outdated, mostly religious based, meme. https://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/the-joy-of-pigs-smart-clean-...

Pigs sleep and root in shit. That's a filthy animal.

Re: Fucking, Austria changes name to Fugging

#242

Post by lostlogin »

tomcooks wrote: post #128

Considering you cannot educate English speaking idiots, make a living out of them: Based on social media analysis see when there's a "high season" of idiots Buy domain fuckingaustria.com or something more clever. Get 100 tshirts with a town sign illustration, bumper stickers, mugs, wool hats and jumpers (which will be worn across all Europe by EU roaming English speakers on road tours), a roadside market permit, sell…

> It's what New Zealand's president did

We have a Prime Minister.

Re: Fucking, Austria changes name to Fugging

#244

Post by nxpnsv »

signaru wrote: post #163
sdiq wrote: post #132

Kumamoto in Japan has a similarly bad name in Swahili. If you break the city's name into 2 four-letter words, you get vagina (kuma) and hot (moto) in Swahili. Thankfully, Swahili speakers are not going to harass this city's residents anytime soon.

meanwhile in Turkey, Batman can be found.

Also in Australia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Batman#Places_named_after...

Re: Fucking, Austria changes name to Fugging

#245

Post by tpoacher »

fabatka wrote: post #181
tpoacher wrote: post #177

Fugging idiots. It's like killing the goose that lays the golden eggs because she quacks too much.

Is it so hard to comprehend that maybe living in a nice Austrian village can be better without a golden egg-laying goose that is a huge nuisance? Not everyone is an entrepreneur who wants to make sacrifices in the holy name of $$$.

I know, I agree 100% (I was being a bit provocative on purpose :p ).

But, on a serious note, I think this will backfire. It's one thing to not have a knife in you, it's totally another to remove one that is already in because you'd rather it wasn't there in the first place.

They are now officially 'the village formerly known as Fucking'. You can be sure the pranks will continue (possibly even more annoying because now people will be putting on an 'accent' when saying "Fugging").

I don't know what a better solution to this problem would be, but this doesn't mean I can recognise a bad solution when I see it.

Re: Fucking, Austria changes name to Fugging

#246

Post by xellisx »

cblconfederate wrote: post #220
DoreenMichele wrote: post #44

"Don’t people have any sense of humour these days?” asked one OOeN reader. Another noted: “They’re getting free publicity – they ought to have been happy to have a funny name." Free publicity that leads to sign posts being stolen. For a tiny village of 100 people, this is likely a serious hardship. If it isn't bringing in more money than it's costing them, it's an attractive nuisance , not free publicity.

They could make millions from fucking tourists

Make the t-shirts!

Re: Fucking, Austria changes name to Fugging

#247

Post by ksaj »

dragonwriter wrote: post #112
ksaj wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems the story I was told about the town of Intercourse at least has some merit. In Swedish, the word for cross is Kors. I know it's not a Swedish town name, but a lot of Swedish words are the same or similar throughout other Germanic languages. In this case, it is namely Dutch, which has a direct connection to the area due to the Amish people there. Anyway, I was told that the town name literally referenced two…

> In this case, it is namely Dutch, German (specifically derived from the Palatine German dialect), not Dutch (the Germanic language of the Netherlands.)

That gets somewhat confusing, since we tend to call it Pennsylvania Dutch, and the area as "Pennsylvania Dutch Country."

So it surprises me to discover that the language is connected to Germanic Switzerland.

As much as Kors was seemingly mistranslated to course instead of cross, Deitsch was apparently mistranslated into the word Dutch instead of German.

And people make fun of the Scandinavian quirks in Minnesota. Uff da!

Thanks for the correction. This error-prone history would make for a great YouTube documentary.

Re: Fucking, Austria changes name to Fugging

#248

Post by anoncake »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #76
ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> " How do you think they can monetize it? " Presumably the same way Hell, Michigan did. Apparently they sell souvenirs and hold events.

Although one theory of the origin of the name is the German word for light or bright , most people these days don't find the word Hell particularly offensive and it's not sexually explicit. Fuck or Fucking is still considered "extremely offensive" by some people and it's sexual. But more to the point, if people in Hell, Michigan choose to monetize the name of their town instead of change it, hey, that's their choice…

Why does it matter if something is considered offensive for sexual or religious reasons?

Re: Fucking, Austria changes name to Fugging

#249

Post by anoncake »

quickthrower2 wrote: post #170
DoreenMichele wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not even funny. Maybe "My sister/friend/whomever went to Austria and I all I got was this Fucking t-shirt" would be sort of funny. But "She went to fucking and all I got was this fucking t-shirt" isn't really a good joke. There's no surprise element. There's no "gotcha." There's no epiphany of "Oh, I get it!"

That was sort of the meta joke! “All I got was this T-shirt” T-shirt’s are not funny in the first place

I can't see that happening. Making bad jokes could make people think the people of Fugging are some kind of Germans. Austrians hate that.

Re: Fucking, Austria changes name to Fugging

#250

Post by incanus77 »

mmmBacon wrote: post #61
incanus77 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was about 8 in southwestern PA, we took a trip to central PA to visit Gettysburg, the Amish Country, Hershey, and all that. We took a steam train ride that promised a "trip to paradise". I remember two things clearly about that train: 1. If you are sitting close enough to the front and lean out far enough, you get hot steam mist droplets painfully scalding your skin. 2. The train indeed went to Paradise, PA, w…

Sounds like Strasburg railroad.

Yes! That was it.
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