Facebook’s announcement to change the company’s name to Meta has been met with ridicule in Israel, with Hebrew speakers pointing to the irony of the word translating to “dead” in the language. “The Jewish community will ridicule this name for years to come,” one Twitter user quipped as several others shared their hillarious takes on the rebranding under the hashtag #FacebookDead. “Thank you for providing all Hebrew speakers a good reason to laugh,” wrote another.

The emergency rescue volunteers Zaka assured their followers on Twitter: “Don’t worry, we’re on it.”

Meta is pronounced like the feminine form of the Hebrew word, according to BBC. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the ‘Meta’ rebranding on Thursday, a move that is being seen in line with his vision for creating a “metaverse”, a virtual reality-based platform that has been described as the future of the Internet. The corporate structure of the social media giant will, however, remain unaffected after the revamp, along with subsidiary platforms like WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger. The Facebook Oversight Board said it will continue to be known by its current name.

Lost in Translation?

Facebook isn’t the first company to be ridiculed over branding translations. KFC created a stir with the Mandarin translation “eat your fingers off” of its iconic motto “finger lickin’ good” when it forayed into the Chinese market in the 1980s.

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Luxury carmaker Rolls-Royce was forced to changed the name of its Silver Mist car to Silver Shadow as mist translates as “excrement” in German.

And when Nokia released its Lumia phone in 2011, it hadn’t perhaps considered the fact that the word is a synonym for a prostitute in some Spanish dialects.

Honda almost ended up naming a new car ‘Fitta,’ a vulgar description for vagina in Swedish, before deciding to name the vehicle Jazz in most countries.