Leafy rapini, or grelo, the vegetable celebrated by the town of As Pontes, Spain, in an event dubbed the "Clitoris festival" by a Google Translate error. Photo by Brent Hofacker/Shutterstock.com

AS PONTES, Spain, Nov. 4 (UPI) -- A Spanish town's celebration of the vegetable grelo, or rapini, was advertised online as a "clitoris festival" for months due to a Google Translate error.

Montserrat Garcia, a spokeswoman for the Galician town of As Pontes in the northwestern region of Spain, said the town posted an announcement for the festival online and put the Galician text into Google Translate for the Castilian Spanish version of the text.


The online translation tool changed "Feria do grelo," or "rapini festival," into "Feria clitoris," or "clitoris festival."

"Since 1981, the festival has made the clitoris one of the star products of the local gastronomy," an excerpt from the announcement reads in Spanish.

Garcia said the announcement was up for several months before officials learned of the error.

"It was quite a surprise," Garcia told the Guardian. "At first, we didn't believe what we were seeing."

Garcia said Google apparently mistook the Galician word "grelo" for the Portugese word "grelo," which refers to the same vegetable but is also an archaic slang term for the piece of female anatomy.

"We discovered that Google translates any mention of grelos, on any website, to clitoris," Garcia told The Local.

"It's a very serious error on the part of Google and we are thinking about making an official complaint for Google to properly recognize the Galician language so this kind of thing doesn't happen again," she said.

A Google representative told The Guardian the error has been corrected.

The representative said: