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    On one particular video game two dogs paws are used as the icon on the ‘PAUSE’ key. This visual pun is amusing and easy to remember for an English speaker. However the pun would simply not work in other languages, there the words for stopping and the word for a dogs feet do not sound the same.
    This slide shows some icons that also fail to cross cultural divides. For the first one, the costume for marriage varies widely from country to country.
    The second icons is a hand gesture. The meaning of hand gestures varies from country to country, and almost any hand gesture will have a rude meaning somewhere in the world. So icons that just show a hand should be avoided, unless the hand is holding something, or acting on some object visible in the icon.
    The third one is a little more subtle. The temperature shown on each thermometer is rising as we go from left to right. This is a natural mapping for someone who reads from left to right, but again this can only be guaranteed for western cultures.