“Nonce finance” and other stories of truly unfortunate branding
Checking Twitter this morning, I heard for the first time about a company called “Nonce finance “, which is apparently “building on Polygon”, something that will surely make sense to the cryptocurrency enthusiasts among us.
At the time I am writing this, their tweet got thousands of quote tweets and retweets. You’re wondering what’s up with that?
The company is so named because in software development a “nonce” is a random number used in encryption. In British slang, however, a nonce is a child molester.
Personally, I am reminded of the time when the Croatian city of Pula had their Board of Tourism run an advertising campaign with the tagline “Pula Non Stop “, complete with a video of people of all ages yelling “Pulaaaaaaaaa!! ”out loud, utterly oblivious to the fact that in Romanian “pula” is the vulgar slang term for the penis.
Incidentally, the Croatian city shares a name with Harry and Meghan’s dog, in turn named after the Setswana word for rain. As a compassionate person who cares about…
