![]() It exceeded sales projections in Venezuela. ![]() Far from being a failure, the Chevy Nova sold well in Mexico and other Spanish-speaking countries.The Chevy Nova was never renamed for the Latin American market.People throughout the Spanish-speaking world had heard of Brazilian bossa nova, too. Even before the Chevy Nova, “Nova” was a familiar brand south of the border: it was the name of a gasoline brand sold by Pemex, the state-owned petroleum company.If a fluent speaker of Spanish wanted to complain that his car wasn’t running, he wouldn’t say “no va.” He’d say “no funciona” or “no camina”: “it isn’t functioning” or “it isn’t running.”.The latter has a stress on the second syllable and means “doesn’t go” the former has a stress on the first syllable and means (as it does in English) “a big, bright star” or “Latin for ‘new’.” A native Spanish-speaker would be no more likely to confuse “nova” and “no va” than an English-speaker would be to confuse “notable” and “no table” or “carpet” and “car pet.” In Spanish, “nova” and “no va” are pronounced differently and have different meanings.So, as a public service, here’s my summary: Nevertheless, not everyone has heard the news. , tireless investigator of urban legends, has done the research and definitively debunked the “no go” story. ![]() There’s just one problem with the story: It’s untrue. In a comment, he wrote that the Nova “did better when it was renamed.”Īnd the story has been immortalized in a Cheezburger cartoon that uses the satiric “Y U NO” meme: In June of this year, one of my blog readers saw fit to remind me of this history lesson. It was repeated without challenge last October in the New Yorker, when, in an article about name development, reporter John Colapinto told readers: “The industry abounds in tales of cross-linguistic gaffes, like … the Chevy Nova-in Spanish, the ‘no go’.” That tale has been taught to generations of business students and recounted in hundreds of marketing seminars. The Nova “failed” in Latin America, the story has it, because its name means “no go” in Spanish. Sooner or later in almost any conversation about global brand names, someone will bring up the “well-known story” about the Chevrolet Nova, the compact car manufactured by General Motors between 19 and again from 1985 through 1988. Nancy Friedman, chief wordworker, Wordworking
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