http://wordie.org/words/nova Comments for the word 'Nova' http://wordie.org http://wordie.org/words/nova#comments A false false friend. From Wikipedia:<br /><br />"A popular urban legend asserts that the Nova sold poorly in Latin America because the phrase no va means "doesn't go" in Spanish. In reality, if a Spanish-speaking person were to say that his car was not working, he would more likely use the terms no marcha or no funciona, ("does not run" or "does not work/function", respectively) instead, just as an English-speaking person would be more likely to say "this car doesn't work", than say "this car doesn't go." The word nova, as opposed to no va, exists in Spanish with the same meaning as in English. Also, the Spanish word for "new" (nuevo or nueva) is a cognate to nova, which originally meant "new" in Latin." Fri, 11 Jan 2008 01:02:00 +0000 http://wordie.org/words/nova#comments