La crosse (Fw: another car name mishap (well, almost))

[M Chuk]

This says it all : 'GM vice-chairman Bob Lutz, who was in Toronto
yesterday to address a gathering of GM dealers, said he wasn't aware
of LaCrosse's racy roots although he speaks French and spent three
years living in Paris'.


Measuring Quebecois and/or Canadien français by a Parisien rule!
(Must be from the U.S. Head Office)  If he'd looked it up in the Dico
de la langue québécoise he would have found several interesting
entries of dubious value for a car merchant -- from 'crossage' to
'crosser' to 'crosseur'. There's a history here of Detroit having to
change a car's name when learning of the inappropriateness or lack of
selling power in the cultural translation. You'd think they'd learn.

En passant, this isn't simply parlance among 'youth culture'. (My
edition of the DLQ is almost 25 years old.) It's older; connected to
the First Nations game (and Canada's national sport) 'la crosse' --
which is also the name of the la crosse stick, and for hockey stick
and golf sticks and all those sticks with little curved ends, and by
extension 'stick' and by further extension, forms of 'using the
stick'. You get the idea. A very masculine trope. A very attractive
range of words for sports enthusiasts, Americanists, onanists, young
men ...

cheers,
m.
---

Date: Mon, 20 Oct 2003 17:15:31 -0400
Subject: Re: Fw: another car name mishap (well, almost)
From: "P. Kerim Friedman" <kerim.list at oxus.net>
To: linganth at cc.rochester.edu

It seems to be true, see here (especially the comments):

http://www.languagehat.com/archives/000917.php

- kerim

On Monday, October 20, 2003, at 03:56 PM, Harriet Ottenheimer wrote:

>Not sure if this is for real.  A colleague sent it to me.
>
>http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/WeirdNews/2003/10/16/227790.html
>
>Does anyone know about this?
>
>  ---Harriet Ottenheimer
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