On the Honey and the Beesting

Sunday, May 28, 2006

Linguistics Majors (read: Big dorks) and the Israeli Media

The giant 20 foot ad on top of the Chorev Mall is one of the things that makes this country great.
It features an adolescent girl sprawled suggestively across the poster, in a skimpy bikini which barely covers her chest, an unfortunate corporate name on the bottom right corner ("The Banana", which I take to be the name of the bathing suit brand), and the following words written in close proximity to the girl's prominent bosom (which isn't so much prominent as it is a flat bosom covered by a bikini that's a good size or two too small):

ת'ציצי בפנים
(Transliterated: Ta'tseetsee beef-neem)

Now. Next to the first letter, a taf,(reading from right to left, remember) is an apostrophe which can be ignored, giving us the following translation:
"Peek inside!" (a command for a girl), which the perverted among us can take to mean "[hey, you girl over there,] Peek inside my bikini!", but which I would prefer to mean "[hey, lady,] Peek inside our store!".

Or. The apostrophe remains an apostrophe, the taf is interpreted as the Israeli slang form of the word - את ה, eht-ha (which marks a direct object of a verb), for example: ta'kufsa (the box): Ani mekhapeset ta'kufsa ("I'm looking for the box) (As opposed to eht ha-kufsa).
Using this interpretation of the spelling (as the ad-designer wishes us to do), we get the translation:
"The boob inside"

The clever ambiguity created on purpose by the ad company catches you between the feminine imperative form of the verb להציץ, (leh-hatsits) to peek (תציצי!-tatsitsi! peek!), and the Israeli slang word for breast, ציצי (tsitsi) (ת'ציצי-ta'tsitsi-The boobie).

So:
Peek inside!
The boob inside!

What a beautiful country.

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Jess,
The "Banana" company is a very popular company here in IL, and there official model is Roni Superstar, another girl with no voice, no looks, and no talent whatsoever, making her mark in the world by being blond. She wont be the first (ahem: Olsen twins! :) )
Anyway, do you know the song by jamelia about a guy who is a superstar? well that VERY unpopular song in the states was translated into hebrew and than sung by Roni, who's real name is Liron Doeni.
Weird, huh?
More slogans should include:
בנים אוהבים בננות
תגעו בבננות שלי!!
I dont know any else.

9:31 AM  

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