11Jan/09Off
Who Came Up With This Name?
Would it have killed them to ask one single English speaker about this before launching the magazine?
What could this possibly mean?
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TsukuBlog A Local Perspective on Life in Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan.
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January 12th, 2009 - 09:37
In Dutch, ‘bar fout’ in two words, would mean ‘awfully wrong’…
January 12th, 2009 - 10:20
Maybe they knew the Dutch meaning and were trying to be ironic?
January 13th, 2009 - 14:38
I just got off the phone with the editor of BARFOUT, after having inquired about the origin of the magazines eye-catching name. They say that they didnt know anything about the expression`s Dutch meaning.Apparently they selected the current moniker from several candidates which the intention of expressing the simplified English meaning of barf out, that is they wanted to mean TO SPEW FORTH, as in an outpouring of artistic expression.
Shaney is correct in that if they had asked a native speaker, he/she would have said that this expression implies DISGUSTING or TO BE DISGUSTED. The founders of the magazine do not seem to know this , however (and I didnt say anything. It wouldnt make any difference now).
January 17th, 2009 - 12:22
Wow! That is really surprising that they picked that name with the English meaning in mind! I thought for sure it must be a word from another language that just happened to look like those two English words. Thanks for checking up on this, Avi.