“When Apple Inc. unveiled Siri on its new iPhone 4S on Tuesday, in most parts of the world the personal virtual assistant app was taken as a serious plus in an otherwise disappointing upgraded handset,” Yoree Koh blogs for The Wall Street Journal. “In Japan, though, many found it tough to take Siri seriously at all.”
“That’s because the name Siri sounds suspiciously close to the Japanese word shiri – a colloquial term for buttocks that, appropriately enough, rhymes with ‘crass,'” Koh reports. “The Japanese Twittersphere immediately took to calling the voice control app the three-letter word for derriere with some abandon. The kanji character 尻 soon cropped up below Siri as a trending topic on Twitter here. In the early hours after the announcement, one local Twitter wag user pointed out that when typing ‘Siri’ into Google, the search engine asked ‘Did you mean: 尻?'”
Koh reports, “The app quickly became the target of more jeers when it spread that the ‘intelligent assistant’ won’t be available in Japan when the 4S goes on sale here on Oct. 14.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: In Japan, Apple should market Siri as SmartAss™.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “krquet” for the heads up.]
There were iPad jokes in the beginning too
It started in 2007; as a spinoff company from SRI International’s Artificial Intelligence. And seems the Chinese investor had no issue with the name. Hong-Kong billionaire, Li Ka-shing, invested in SIri back in 2009.
Apple may have had this idea long ago and inspired many.
Yet, it is rather big of Apple not to Claim they made this. LOL.
Siri — Shiri — Ass in Japanese.
While we’re stretching for hits, dear WSJ, why not try Wall Sh** Journal. Has an honest to nice ring to it, if you ask me.
I’m old enough to remember:
• when MTV played music.
• why people said, “Dial a phone.”
• when the WSJ had content worth reading…
Siri in English sounds stupid as well
And this technology was acquired by Apple.
Could have done the typical Apple lame-o-name.
iTell or iTalk or iSpeak or iLetUspeak or iTspeaks.
iShutUpAlreadyAndDoWhatYouWereToldToDo
I’m not your virtual assistant.
No it doesn’t.
Pick a word, any word. It’s a happy bet that in some language somewhere it will be rude, offensive, or scatological. Grow up.
There is a company called ‘Lexicon Branding’ whose sole purpose is creation of recognisable brand names. They are responsible for, among others,
Outback (Subaru)
Swiffer (Procter & Gamble)
BlackBerry (RIM)
PowerBook (Apple)
as well as countless others. They employ linguists, historians, sociologists, psychologists, plus many other experts who, in search of a perfect brand name, among other things, scour languages around the world to make sure their recommendation doesn’t sound fowl in some of them.
It is clear that SIRI didn’t use such service when coming up with the name…
Not sure about Blackberry. Since the times of Apple in technology, there were quire of few foetus-named companies, including Acorn and BlackBerry.
Apparently, they ‘Lexicon Branding’ are taking ownership of BlackBerry (last week’s “New Yorker” has a long article about them). RIM wanted to call it MegaMail or PowerMail…
Remember Chevrolet naming the Nova? I guess that isn’t the best name in the Spanish speaking world for an automobile.
Heaven forbid that your product have a fowl name.
Let the users call it a turkey and you a chicken for not changing it.
My understanding is that in Japanese phonology, the S sound becomes SH before I (I as in machine). Thus the following syllables are possible: SA, SE, SHI, SO, SU. There is no SI in Japanese. If an ordinary person in Japan says Siri without special effort, it comes out shiri (whoops!) and that would result in the hilarity.
Siri is a spin-out from SRI International’s Artificial Intelligence Center, and is an offshoot of the DARPA-funded CALO project, described as perhaps the largest artificial-intelligence project ever launched.
Hong-Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing – DOESN’T think the name SUCKS
Yeah, it would sound more like SHEE-LEE coming from a Japanese/Korean. In other words, they’re mispronouncing it, then laughing at themselves for almost saying a word that would make a 4 year old blush, in the country famous for the wackiest porn in the world. Are we done here?
Yes, they mispronounce it in the same way we mispronounce their words simply because we don’t have their sounds in our alphabetical system – and they don’t have an “si” sound in their language system.
Saying shiri would make a 4 yr old blush? You’ve obviously never lived in Japan. Japanese kids; especially boys, achieve great amusement saying words like that.
“In Japan, Apple should market Siri as SmartAss™.”
Choice take MDN.. – Banzai!
Kind of a stupid non-story page view whore article.
Opsono has it right. It might have been funny hearing it used in the keynote, but we don’t know that Apple will go to market with that name in all countries. Typically, they will look for phonemes that evoke the correct meaning and work in that language, especially when it comes to Asian languages.
Strange, I thought it would sound like ‘silly’ in Japan …
You’d be amused with the story about the American who nearly got punched in the face by a German when he called him schwul (queer) when he meant to say the room was schwül (stuffy).
There was a French woman who had a Spanish maid. She told the maid to put the cake (gateau) in the refrigerator. A few hours later, she opened the refrigerator and out came the cat (gato)!
“…It’s kind of Siri. But not rearry. Because its fihring my body with rage…”
Big frikken deal. So they teehee over poopoo caca jokes.
Haven’t heard an iPad joke in a long time now……
MDN’s take the best I have heard!
This all seems so reminiscent of the announcement of the iPad. I can’t believe the flak Apple is taking on this incredible upgrade to an incredible product. When people finally get ahold of it, we’ll hear them all gushing about how, after having spent a week with iOS 5 and iCloud and iTunes Match and Siri, they can’t understand how they survived this long without them. I am impressed and a little excited to get my new phone.
If the Japanese would TRULY try to learn foreign languages (and their own) they would not have ‘problems’ like this. Instead of properly pronouncing Siri… Sea Re… The make the SI into their own し(chi) making it sound like butt. Besides, more often than not, it is spoken in a polite or honorific (?) form, Oshiri.
Correction: し (shi)
That’s right. I’m a Siri man. Siri-ously.
If you put an “oh” in front of it, it isn’t vulgar at all. So you can say “ohshiri” at the dinner table with your parents and grandmother visiting from Osaka, and no one would be upset. You cannot, however, say “ohass.” I mean, you could, but your parents wouldn’t know what you were talking about, and your visiting grandmother would probably just smile and nod her head to avoid having your parents think she was losing her hearing or going senile so that they could finally put her in a home and sell her apartment.
Shiri or oshiri are not considered vulgar in Japan. Neither is it used in a negative way like in the west. So shut up you ignorant ass. 🙂
Replace ‘Dinner Table’ with ‘Tatami Mat’, but yea I get your point.
yeah, yeah. i can remember in high school latin when we all got a big laugh out of the word for six. and the word for exit (from the freeway) in germany got a big laugh too.
I had to look up the German freeway exit. That’s pretty funny… 🙂
In other news, “Siri” is being confused with “sari”.
Sari and ass. That’s just not right.
The japanse are very interested in the new iPhone. Seen a ton on them whilst I’ve been in Japan this last week. The bullet train was running on news headline display yesterday and the new iPhone was the main topic. It’s a big deal here and apple can easily change the name in Japan if needed.
Siri is going meld with my Nike + iPod kit and start telling me I need to run faster. Thanks Coach Siri…
焼尻温泉に入りたい。。。
The Japanese are giggling at this? Sorry, but in Japan, the slang for ‘Backside’ is nothing compared “Robotic Schoolgirl Donkey Porn Volume 3”. Get real, Japan. And while you’re at it, stop humping your pillow girlfriend. You’re creepin me out, bro.
And Chi-chi’s was slang for boobs, but nobody laughed at a defunct chain of Mexican restaurants over there….
…or DID they?
bottom line (heh), any word can mean something funny in another language…and is probably slang for a body part somewhere as well.
WHoever thought the name RIM was great is retarded. Everyone knows what a rimjob is. How many times did I grab someones blaxckberry and threaten to rim them with it.. sad and childish, yes. but who the F cares what *giggle giggle* little japanese girls think of Siri?
Easy, breezy, japan-easy!
Grow up Japan, and if you cant then I hope you join China in the downward spiral.
The full name of the company is Research In Motion.
Wow! You really live up to your name! Thank you so much for clarifying that for all of us idiots out here who aren’t geniuses and didn’t know that’s what it stands for.
By the way, did you know that SIRI is an acronym, too? It stands for “Speaks In Real Inglish” (or “Super Intelligent Resentful Intern”). In all seriousness, it probably stands for “Speak It, Read It” or some other lame crap.
Yeah, Japan… Y’know, you named one of your game machines after slang for urine/penis, and we got over it. Sold pretty while for a while, too.
——RM