Venezuela: Launch of a Bolivarian handset priced at less than US$ 15

[ars technica] Venezuela has launched its own cell phone, the government-produced Vergatario, for less than $15. It's made in-country with Chinese parts, and its name has absolutely, positively nothing to do with penises. Also, the Venezuelan government won't use the phones to spy on people.

Hugo Chavez's "Bolivarian revolution" has just revolted its way into cell phone design, producing a US$13.95 handset/MP3 player in Venezuela with Chinese parts. Chavez has big plans for the phone, which he wants to export to the world, but much of the talk so far has focused on its name, "Vergatario"—as one YouTube commenter put it, "creo que la traducion corecta es: Big Wang."

"Verga" is a Venezuelan slang term for "penis." The fact is glossed over in some Spanish newspaper accounts, which say that the phone's name only signifies "excellence." But, as The Guardian points out, the root word retains prominence. And Chavez can't keep himself from chuckling when he says it.

As other Spanish-language sources have noted, the phone is already known as the "penis cellphone" in the US, and Chavez isn't above making jokes about the name. "Whoever doesn't have a Vergatario is nothing," he said.


That's all odd enough, but the phone's launch was then timed to coincide with... Mother's Day, and Chavez made a big show of calling his mother on one of the devices during a TV appearance.

The government charges that "Venezuelan private media have distorted the name of the cell phone made in Venezuela, the Vergatario, so as to give it a sexual connotation and to try to hold back the great success the appliance has had in the country." "Vergatario" means only "optimal, outstanding, incredible or of the best quality," and the Royal Spanish Academy agrees.

"Therefore, the same entity that clarifies the meaning of all the words in Spanish dismisses any other type of meaning for 'vergatario,'" says the government, though one is immediately reminded of the "teagbagging" movement here in the US for an example of how just going to the dictionary isn't enough to avoid sexual innuendo.

Venezuela: $15 Bolivarian cell phone isn't a "penis phone"