Comment by dotancohen
2 years ago
You know, I've heard that rebuttal, but I've been told this anecdote of the car's notoriety by family members from Columbia and more recently from a friend from Argentina. So perhaps "no va" and "Nova" are pronounced differently, and perhaps the car did sell well, but the Spanish-speaking peoples most certainly did find the term "no va" in the car's name.
You should know what they say about the Mitsubishi Pajero, too!
It's the same difference as between papa and papá. We are trained to perceive different accented syllables as different words with different meanings.
Sure, we have these in my language as well. For instance, the car Kia should be written like "vomit" - so we have a convoluted spelling and say the name slightly wrong to distance the word from "vomit". But it's still clear to everybody how the name should be pronounced and spelled.
Doesn't seem to affect sales, though, probably like the Chevy Nova. Those Kia are everywhere.