That Doesn’t Translate
My favourite Belgian company names to date:
Cofinnimo
Rents office space. “Only 1.701m² remaining,” they proclaim, not
realising that the period has a different meaning in English that
makes their offices seem really, well, coffin-like.
Euroscaff
I don’t know what “scaff” is. It’s probably short for
“scaffolding,” but it sounds like an unpleasant residue of some
kind. “The residence was home to some two hundred felines. When
officers entered the building, they found it knee-deep in
scaff.”
Coprobat
From the same root word that brought you such classics as coprolite
(fossilised crap), coprophilia (a particularly distasteful sexual
preference), coprophagia (take a wild guess!) et al, this company
gets its name. Well...not quite. It’s really just an unfortunate
combination of the first syllables of the full name: “Compagnie de
Protection des Bâtiments.”