Portia? Why did they name her after a car?
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — A Fish Called Wanda
bringbackberniew — 14 years ago(September 30, 2011 09:49 PM)
I watched this again a week ago & coincidentally, I was introduced to a woman named Portia today. That line went thru my head instantly & I started laughing. They all looked strangely at me.
Better still, when I told them why I was laughing, Portia looked at me seriously & said "It comes from Shakespeare". Unfortunately, I broke up again before saying "I know. I know."
To try to make it up to her, I started reciting
he thinks the Gettysburg address is where Lincoln lived.
the London underground is not a political movement.
We didn't lose Vietnam. It was a tie.
& on & on -
zuzupetal_99 — 14 years ago(December 31, 2011 11:20 PM)
Wow, I totally didn't get that line b/c people name girls Mercedes after cars, therefore I've only known Portia as references to the car - no idea it was from Shakespeare lol - don't call me stupid!!
"Are you going to your grave with unlived lives in your veins?" ~ The Good Girl -
Punctuality — 14 years ago(February 29, 2012 08:32 PM)
I watched the movie, never truly understanding why they laughed at Otto's reference to Portia as a car. Even after all these years, I had to find out the true meaning by going onto IMDb message boards, LOL!
I ain't callin' you nothing but a kindred spirit!
Be excellent to each other!
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Simon-140 — 14 years ago(March 05, 2012 05:08 PM)
Mercedes is common female name in Spain. The Mercedes car name is a shortened form of "Mercedes-Benz" which was named after Karl Benz and his Spanish wife (?) Mercedes.
(I'm not sure why the name is hyphenated. If the company was named after Benz's wife then it should be simply "Mercedes Benz" so perhaps there's a twist to this story that I haven't heard.)
Spanish names can sound odd to Anglophone ears. I once had dinner with couple called Jesus and Mercedes, which made me smile. -
zuzupetal_99 — 14 years ago(March 06, 2012 06:37 AM)
Oh wow, I never knew that either! I guess I never thought about where the car maker got the name Mercedes! I didn't realize it was a spanish name at all.
"Are you going to your grave with unlived lives in your veins?" ~ The Good Girl -
brupey-1 — 13 years ago(April 25, 2012 03:32 PM)
Mercds a Spanish girls name meaning grace was the name of the daughter born in 1889 to the Austrian businessman, Emil Jellinek, who had homes in Baden near Vienna and Nice.
A progressive thinker with an interest in sport, Jellinek turned his enthusiasm to the dawning age of the automobile, an invention he knew would be of key importance for the future. As early as 1897, he made the journey to Cannstatt to visit the Daimler factory and ordered his first Daimler car a belt-driven vehicle with a six-hp two-cylinder engine.
But the car, delivered in October 1897 and with a top speed of 24 km/h, was soon too slow for Jellinek. He demanded 40 km/h and ordered two more vehicles. Supplied in September 1898, the two Daimler Phoenix cars with their frontmounted eight-hp engines were the worlds first road vehicles with four-cylinder engines.
Emil Jellinek had good contacts with the worlds of international finance and the aristocracy and became increasingly active as a businessman. In 1898, he began to promote and sell Daimler automobiles, in particular, within the higher echelons of society. In 1899, DMG supplied Jellinek with ten vehicles; in 1900, he received as many as 29.
Jellinek demanded ever faster and more powerful vehicles from DMG. From 1899, he entered these in race meetings first and foremost of which was the Nice Week where he would race under his pseudonym Mercds - the name of his daughter, ten years old at the time, and a name that was well known in motoring circles. In the early days, the name referred to the team and driver not to an automotive brand.
At the beginning of April 1900, Jellinek made an agreement with DMG concerning sales of cars and engines and the decision was taken to use the Jellineks pseudonym as a product name. In addition, it was agreed that a new engine bearing the name Daimler-Mercedes was to be developed. Two weeks later, Jellinek ordered 36 of the vehicles at a total price of 550,000 marks a sizeable order even by todays standards: in 2005, this total would have been equivalent to 2.3 million euros. Just a few weeks later, he placed a new order for another 36 vehicles, all with eight-hp engines. -
chester-copperpot-1 — 11 years ago(February 26, 2015 08:43 PM)
A car manufacturer is Porsche.
A woman's name is Portia.
The joke is on the ignorance of the character.- That he actually thought her name was "Porsche" and not "Portia".
- That he associated the sound more with the car than the name.
- That he didn't know of the name "Portia".
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TVippy — 10 years ago(September 05, 2015 02:06 PM)
What spoiled the movie was inconsistency. One scene he's super smart and witty, the other - he doesn't know the difference between "Porsche" and not "Portia".
I own you.
https://goo.gl/0avZjB -
PussyCrusher_Principal — 13 years ago(May 26, 2012 02:04 PM)
"To try to make it up to her, I started reciting
he thinks the Gettysburg address is where Lincoln lived.
the London underground is not a political movement.
We didn't lose Vietnam. It was a tie.
& on & on"
Aristotle was NOT Belgianha ha! Good Stuffthis movie's 24 years old and it STILL makes me laugh my a** off!
Otto - "Monkeys don't read philosophy"
Wanda - "Yes they dothey just don't understand it!"
Gut-bustingly funny!
"The things I do for love" Jaime Lannister -
meininki — 13 years ago(June 24, 2012 07:22 AM)
To be fair to the wannabe yuppies, the proper German pronunciation actually
is
closer to "portia" than "porsh".
http://www.forvo.com/word/porsche/ -
thesnowleopard — 13 years ago(January 31, 2013 11:12 PM)
My favorite part of that whole speech is: "To call you stupid would be an insult to stupid people! I've known sheep that could outwit you! I've worn dresses with higher IQs!" Classic!
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