Status: True
The internet is full of many
unfortunate urls that can be read in two ways. Some of the urls intentionally have double meanings, some don't. For instance, viagrafix.com (via grafix / viagra fix) was an unintentional oversight, but powergenitalia.com (powergen italia / power genitalia) was a deliberate joke, as is
penisland.net. Apparently Vietnamese sites are prone to the same problem. For which reason, Vietnamese regulators have rejected the website name www.buoi.com.vn.
The BBC explains:
A website hoping to promote grapefruit in Vietnam has been banned from using the fruit's name because of official fears of a mix-up with a penis.
The Vietnamese for grapefruit, buoi, sounds different from a slang word for penis, but without special accents it looks the same. Vietnamese regulations say website names cannot include "sensitive" words. The site, set up to market a grapefruit wholesaler in Ha Tinh province, was told to find another name. "We have to refuse the website name of www.buoi.com.vn because the word for grapefruit, buoi, without a proper tone marking can be misunderstood," Thai Huu Ly, of the Vietnam Internet Network Information Centre, told the AFP agency.
Comments
This reminds me of that story about the TV series "Joanie Loves Chachi" being a big hit in Korea because Chachi is pronounced the same as the Korean word for penis.
http://www.snopes.com/radiotv/tv/joanie.htm
someone said Gooie Mooren to her, which in Afrikaans means good morning, but in Bulgarian it means "Tired Penis."
(*prescriptivists bug off)