Failed attempt at English-sounding word

[Mark A. Mandel]

>From my son:

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I don't usually send out mail over little things, but
this is the most beautifully failed attempt at
creating an English-sounding word I've ever seen the
Japanese produce: the 1986 giant-robot-espionage
series "Space Adventure Srungle". No matter how often
I see it, it still looks like a typo.

http://www.toyboxdx.com/data/sramble/scans/smc_srung_box.jpg

The box from a Srungle model. I think the robot suits
the name pretty well: in both cases, it seems like
someone was changing his mind about what he was going
to say or build at a few points during the process,
with the end result being distinctive in a garbled
kind of way.

The katakana indicate that the Japanese pronunciation
is "surunguru"; apparently during the series vowels
are shortened in an attempt to approximate correctly
pronouncing Srungle.

I have no idea what they were trying to evoke with
this name.

- J