Chavez Defends 'Penis' Phone

The Socialist dreamstate of Venezuela will soon be awash in cheap phones, courtesy of Comrade Hugo. I'm sure the surveillance applications come pre-installed.

Hugo Chavez, Venezuela’s president, has become the world’s first country president to launch a mobile phone.

And as if this isn’t weird enough, Chavez gave the phone a funny (or maybe offensive, for some) name: Vergatorio – which is a Venezuelan slang term for… penis.

Produced by a company that Chavez nationalized, the Vergatorio phone is a low-end model that costs only about $15.

The boob defends the use of the word.

The government-made subsidised telephone – at $15 one of the world's cheapest handsets – went on sale this week, the latest pro-poor initiative from Chávez's self-styled socialist revolution.

In a televised address to ministers at Caracas's Miraflores palace, Chávez distanced vergatario from verga, slang for penis. He cited the Spanish language reference dictionary, the Real Academia Española, which defined vergatario as an adjective signifying quality and value.

The Guardian said the word denoted excellence but that some Venezuelans considered it vulgar. Part of the Real Academia's definition – "adj. vulg. Ven" – acknowledges the connotation. Residents of Venezuela's second city, Maracaibo, are renowned for constructing swear words derived from verga.