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>Naming a car Nova can cause trouble in Spanish-speaking locales (“no go”)

That's an urban legend: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/chevrolet-nova-name-spanis...




I agree with Snopes. Pronunciation is everything in Spanish. The word nova is not at all pronounced the same as no va, and a native Spanish speaker would not confuse the two. My personal experience after having lived in Central America with locals, not ex-Pats, is that accent and pronunciation are the key to speaking Spanish, not grammar.


It's "Philosophically True": It's true to the extent people need it to be to make a point or prove their philosophy valid, like the idea of the "tabula rasa"; we know, scientifically, that humans aren't blank slates at birth, but some people have a need for it to be true so their philosophy isn't disproven by mere positivism.


So, a lie you find useful?


More like a lie which gets spread because it is apparently morally wrong for some ideas to be disproven.




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