When General Motors in Canada launched their Buick LaCrosse, they had to rebrand it after realizing that the name referred to masturbation in French Canadian slang.

Exactly the same mistake was made by Mitsubishi in Spanish-speaking markets. The name of their Pajero is Spanish for masturbation (the word can also refer to a lazy or stupid person). 

Ford Pinto was a popular model in Europe, but when it was launched in Brazil, the importers discovered that the name is Brazilian–Portuguese slang for small penis. The car was renamed Corcel, which means horse.

A similar mistake was made by the Chinese auto maker Chana. In Brazil, chana sounds like the slang word for female genitalia, and so the name was changed to Changan.

Arguably, localization is crucial for brand reputation, and it is important to know about false friends (which you can red about here).

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Sic erat scriptum means so written, thus it had been written.

When quoting something, writers may use sic to indicate that a word or phrase that looks wrong is indeed an exact reproduction of the original—the mistake appears in the source. Quotations should always be in their original form.

Sic is usually written in square brackets: [sic]. The word sic is often seen as a loanword that does not require italics, but in the United States, sic is usually italicized.

Sic can be used to mark an actual error or misprint or a conspicuous detail in the text, a word that seems odd or erroneous.

Since sic is used to draw the reader’s attention to a mistake by the writer, it often indicates disapproval and may signal superciliousness or be condescending. You should use caution when writing [sic] in order not to sound haughty or malicious.

There [sic] son had graduated from Cambridge.
The correct spelling is, of course, their.

She carries out research at the John [sic] Hopkins University.
This is a common error. The correct name is Johns Hopkins University, named after the entrepreneur and benefactor Johns Hopkins. His great-grandmother’s name was Margaret Johns; she married Gerard Hopkins and they named their son, the benefactor’s grandfather, Johns Hopkins. His grandson had the same name.

You can find a number of Latin abbreviations used in English here.

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