Language mistakes on dial
Some watch brands try to give themselves (on the dial) the appearance of heritage etc by using a brand name or other watch terminology in German or French or... whatever.
This can backfire when they get it wrong.
For example, the depicted watch dial has the following issues:
- the brand name Borman makes us think of Martin Bormann, Hitler's private secretary - that's not a language issue, just a case of lack of cultural sensitivities
- German surnames with a "man" sounding suffix actually end in -mann, not -man. There are exceptions, but... 5 places in Germany have someone with the surname Borman, 1948 have someone with the surname Bormann.
- "Genauigkeit Instrumente" translates as "precision instruments", translated word for word. But you cannot juxtapose nouns like that in German, you have to form compound nouns. That would be "Genauigkeitsinstrumente" in this case - one word, with a joining "s" in the middle.
- "Engravers" is an odd attribute to give to yourself as a watch company (Lobinni does it too), even more so when you pride yourself on your precision instruments. That aside, why the language switch? German brands would even say Automatik rather than Automatic.
Other little mistakes I found:
- Specht & Sohne, a Chinese homage brand that missed out the umlaut markers on Söhne
- the German word for "power reserve" is "Gangreserve", and I have seen "Powerreserve" as one word. That is Denglisch.
I am sure there are many many more. What did you notice?
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Balthazar
UK-based German expat. Likes cheap watches. Not bothered about brands.
Member since
Last active: 2 hrs ago
I tend to not sweat the small stuff.
Well, people don't buy watches because their brand name is silly, like Bagelsport or Mysterious Code. I find badly faked heritage more worrysome, but here I am just interested to collect examples for entertainment value.
A truly bad example of badly faked heritage were the Hitler diaries that were sold to mag Stern and the Sunday Times, round about 40 years ago. On the cover the diaries had Hitler's intials emblazened on them, in a very ornate and barely readable Fraktur font. Thing is: they said F.H., not A.H - the faker had not noticed, neither had mag Stern.
I like this "Cheronometer" "since 8500"
I like this "Cheronometer" "since 8500"
...undoubtedly brought to use from the future by Andre Cheron, the timetravelling expert on chess endgames.
fixed it for ya
fixed it for ya
Chinese invented clocks, Yi Xing of Tang Dynasty. Hundreds of years later Su Song of Song Dynasty refined it, and made it more sophisticated. Wonder what kinda mushrooms they were on.
oh FFS. I didn't say all Chinese watches. I'm well aware that there are good and reputable Chinese watch companies.
Chinese mushroom brands are those "brands" that POP up (like a mushroom) with very familiar looking designs and often, as uhrensohn notes, misusing words, names, etc.