What does Cibai mean?
Posted in Blunders and Fail, Branding on May 19th, 2009 by admin – 2 Comments Tags: blunder, cibai, cunt, fail, microsoft, product naming, pussy, vagina
The definition of Cibai may vary depending on who you ask. If you talk to a Microsoft researcher, they will tell you it’s an “abstract interpretation-based static analyzer for modular analysis and verification of Java classes”. Cibai is the name of a product developed by the Microsoft research team.
On the other hand, if you ask anyone in Singapore or Malaysia what Cibai means, you may get slapped. Cibai is slang for… VAGINA! It can best be translated into the dredded C word… “C_ _ _”.
As Josh Lim puts it…
Cibai’ is a a Chinese dialect (specifically, Hokkien) term for vagina, and ‘Cibai’ remains the most popular spelling. Other variations include ‘chee bye’, ‘chibai’, or ‘ji bai’. ‘Cibai’ can also be used as the equivalent of ‘damn’! or ‘fuck!’, as it is also used as an exclamation if someone is angry or upset. It also can be used with adjectives, eg ‘Chau cibai’ basically means ’smelly cunt’. There’s also the 6 hit combo ‘Kan Ni Neh Chau Ci Bai’ (often abbreviated to KNNCCB) term that is quite popular that means, er, nevermind.
You can see more the term defined here at urbandictionary.In short it’s one of the worst things you could call your software product.
It will be interesting to see if Microsoft eventually gives into international political correctness and changes the name. Bottom line, if you are doing business internationally, you need to be aware of such cultural nuances.
