i.Beat Blaxx: A Dead Horse

Posted by Joel Johnson, August 28, 2007 11:09 AM | # | | Discuss (6)

This has travelled thoroughly through the Gadgetheral Plane, but it bears mentioning all the same. German manufacturer Trekstor named the latest "piano-black" MP3 player in their "i.Beat" line the "iBeat blaxx." (After the name hit the native-English bitwaves, they renamed it to "blax".)

I have serious doubts that the offensiveness of the name flew over the heads of the company, as "I beat *" jokes are probably daily occurrences at Trekstor, German or not. [ScaryIdeas]

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Comments

#1 posted by HornCologne

, August 28, 2007 11:59 AM:

Somehow I worry that you are about to jump on some stereotyping bandwagon here when you say:

"I have serious doubts that the offensiveness of the name flew over the heads of the company, as "I beat *" jokes are probably daily occurrences at Trekstor, German or not."

I live in Germany and I am willing to bet hard cash that the poor sods at Trekstor *truly* never noticed/considered/thought of the implications or sound of this in English. There are many countries and cultures in the world whose frame of reference is neither centered on the English language nor American culture ... weird, right?

Even though many English words are used in every day speech in German (so-called "Neu-Deutsch" - using English words in German ways ... "das Meeting", "die Location", "downloaden" "das Beat" *in a musical context* and so on), I don't think you are justified in jumping to the worst possible conclusion. I prefer to think it was a simple cross-cultural f***-up, don't you?

#2 posted by Joel Johnson

, August 28, 2007 12:04 PM:

Of course it's possible they were completely unaware of the connotations, but the "i.Beat blaxx" wasn't the first "i.Beat" product. I have a hard time believing that in the entire history of the company no one had ever pointed out to them what "i.Beat" means in English. I mean, it's about as basic, gramatically, as it comes.

I could be wrong, naturally, and they'd never own up to it even if it were true, so I guess we'll never know!

#3 posted by Patrick Dodds

, August 28, 2007 1:43 PM:

"downloaden" is a word? Fab. I love German.

#4 posted by Halloween Jack , August 28, 2007 2:21 PM:

When I read this, I immediately thought of this tasty Teutonic treat. Then again, the American equivalent is the Eskimo Pie, which contains a racial term that many Inuit find offensive, so pot-kettle-black, as it were.

#5 posted by Anonymous , August 28, 2007 2:33 PM:

I'm German and my English is quite good, but I never thought of "i.beat" that way until I read this article. I didn't even get it at first. Maybe it's because I would accentuate the "i" and because I thought of "beat" as the noun, not the verb, same as in ipod.
This is definitely a language problem, though they should have taken care of any potential language issues before releasing the product.

And yeah, annoyingly, some people say "downloaden", "pingen", "gamen" and lots of other cruelties to both languages...

#6 posted by Halloween Jack , August 28, 2007 2:36 PM:

Hrm, no linking in the comments. I was referring to http://www.slate.com/id/2118016/ if anyone wants to know what "this tasty Teutonic treat" is.