An advert for a Glasgow restaurant's 'Phat Phuc' special has been cleared by advertising regulators.
Two people complained about the Hanoi Bike Shop's advert after seeing posters for the special in the city centre and railways stations.
The poster, which advertised a special set menu of four noodle courses for £15.95, featured a silhouette of a buddha in a cloud with the phrase 'Phat Phuc'.
The text underneath the advert said: "Get your noodle on! First Tuesday of every month four delicious noodle based dishes for £15.95."
Two members of the public complained to the Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) about the posters claiming the slogan, when spoken out loud, 'sounded like a swear word' and was 'inappropriate for public display where children could see it'.
However, the restaurant in Ruthven Lane, Glasgow, said that 'Phat Phuc' was the name of an event that it had been running since March 2015 and that in Vietmamese it is pronounced 'Fet Fook' meaning 'Happy Buddha'.
The ASA agreed and said that despite the word 'Phuc' 'sounding similar to the expletive f**k', the posters could still be used.
It said: "The ASA understood that the word “happy” in Vietnamese was correctly spelt as “Phuc” and although it was pronounced as “Fook”, we acknowledged that it sounded similar to the expletive "f**k".
"However, we noted that the Hanoi Bike Shop sold Far Eastern cuisine, which both posters had made sufficiently clear.
"In the context of the posters, we considered that viewers who might have been offended by bad language were likely to recognise that “Phuc” was from a reference to Southeast Asian language, was different from the expletive and would not necessarily be pronounced in the same way.
"We therefore, concluded that the posters were unlikely to cause serious or widespread offence."
The ASA also said that children were 'unlikely to comprehend that 'Phuc' was a Vietnamese word were also unlikely to read or pronounce it as the expletive'.
It said: "We acknowledged that while the expletive had not been used, the two words, depending on the pronunciation, might sound similar.
"However, we considered that younger children who were unlikely to comprehend that “Phuc” was a Vietnamese word were also unlikely to read or pronounce it as the expletive.
"While some older children might have pronounced it as the expletive, given the context of an ad for a Vietnamese restaurant and that the word was taken from this language we did not consider that this made it unsuitable for them to see.
"We therefore concluded that the posters were not irresponsibly placed where children could see them."
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