Regular readers of Ouch's fine weblog may recall the media furore back in October over the launch of the Spazz wheelchair in the UK. "Spazz", we were assured, may be an offensive term for someone with cerebral palsy in the UK, but in the US its meaning is entirely different.

Well, these things can work both ways. The Keep Britain Tidy people have come up with a new cinema advertising campaign aimed at the 15 - 24 year old demographic with the strapline, "Don't be a gimp". (You can watch the advert here. Lady Bracknell considers it to be very odd, but must confess that, since it is many years since she belonged to the target age bracket, she is possibly not the best person to comment.)

Now, while it's highly improbable that this campaign would ever be transferred across to the States, that strapline would be pretty offensive if it did. Perhaps advertising executives would do well in future to familiarise themselves with Wikipedia's list of words having different meanings in British and American English, if they're thinking about trying to market anything to both countries?

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