A truckload full of what exactly?

English as a Second Language English Vocabulary, Grammar and Idioms
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So yesterday am cruising down the Autobahn A9 on my way to Leipzig doing around 100 on the GS when I see this truck. Apparently it’s one of those Amazon trucks that started to appear in Germany just a couple of months ago. You know, the ones with the Amazon Prime logo and the tagline “There’s so much to Amazon Prime - - a truckload more”.

Now, what’s interesting about this is that one, Amazon apparently has been growing tremendously fast if it now it’s even using its own trucks and two, Amazon is using a tagline in Germany not many Germans might fully understand since there’s no German equivalent to the American idiom “a truckload”. As a result, the Germans are not very likely to really grasp the intended word play.

Which begs the question how companies decide whether or not to translate or localize a certain tagline. For example, Vodafone always uses very short and rather simple English taglines and slogans which they don’t translate as the vast majority of their customers understand phrases like “make the most of now” or “more power to you” regardless of what their native language is. I’m not sure how the Amazon slogan will work out in Germany. What is your take on this?

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Yeah, it’s actually a pretty inappropriate play on words. Thing is, most people do understand English curse words from Hollywood, but I’d not like to be the one to explain this to a foreigner in a class type situation. I hope my kid never asks, what does that mean exactly Mom? It’s subliminal. You can totally accept it at face value until you mature a bit more, then you’re like, ‘yeah okay Bezos, you’re totally cool. Now, how about putting some of that rocket $ towards the bioplastics you should be using in all these packages, instead of this basic crap that won’t decompose for at least another 30,000 years… like, that’d be the coolest!’

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