Sir Terry Pratchett's Bromeliad Trilogy about the wainscot society of mouse-sized littlepeople called Nomes includes the earth-moving machine the Nomes have hijacked and operate on their quarry (which they see as a dragon, and themselves as dragon riders - logical; if you were the size of a mouse, construction vehicles would be kaiju-sized to you!), a JCB called Jekub by the Nomes in the original UK version but a Caterpillar called Cat/CAT by the Nomes in the US editions and a Fiat Fiatallis called Fiat Allis by the Nomes in the Italian editions ("Trilogia del Piccolo popolo", where Nomes are "niomi"), which localise the European portions (ie most) of the saga's plot as taking place in an ambiguous country, implied to be Italy, instead of the UK (much like the Western releases of Ace Attorney games takes place in the US instead of Japan like the source material did). The literate Nomes from the Stationaire (the bookshop and stationary section of the Nomes' old departament store home, where the only literate Nomes in the county lived - reading and writing was what they did the most) call the brand name printed on the construction vehicle "the Mark of the Dragon," and it becomes the "Dragon's" proper name to all the Nomes in the quarry - ie the Mark of the Dragon is Jekub (JCB) in the original UK edition, Cat/CAT (Caterpillar) in the US edition, and Fiat Allis (FIATALLIS) in the Italian translation. Here's some visual reference for each version:
"iii. And the Mark of the Dragon was upon it. iv. And the Mark was Jekub." (Verses from the Nomes' sacred text, the Book of Nome.)
"iii. And the Mark of the Dragon was upon it. iv. And the Mark was Cat." (Verses from the Nomes' sacred text, the Book of Nome.)
(Reverse translated from the Italian) "iii. And the Mark of the Dragon was upon it. iv. And the Mark was Fiat Allis." (Verses from the Nomes' sacred text, the Book of Nome.)
(Reverse translated from the Italian) "iii. And the Mark of the Dragon was upon it. iv. And the Mark was Fiat Allis." (Verses from the Nomes' sacred text, the Book of Nome.)
"iii. And the Mark of the Dragon was upon it. iv. And the Mark was Jekub (original UK edition.)" (Verses from the Nomes' sacred text, the Book of Nome, which reoccurs being quoted throughout the Bromeliad Trilogy as pastiche of the style of the King James Bible - just like Monty Python have done upon introducing the Holy Hand Grenade, or in at the start of The Meaning of Life's Part II: Growth and Learning). To continue playing with the associations of this, a literate Nome from the Stationaire (the bookshop and stationary section of the Nomes' old departament store home, where the only literate Nomes in the county lived - reading and writing was what they did the most) asks:
"'JCB? Jcb (pronounced phonetically)? Jekub? It's got no vowels in it. What sort of name is that?'" Also "Jekub" sounds like "Jacob," the westernised form of "Ya'akov" (יַעֲקֹב), one of the Patriarchs of the Old Testament.
This is a play on 'YHWH', the classical Hebrew spelling of Yahweh (the Judaeo-Christian God), and of the fact that Hebrew, the original language of the Old Testament, is written without vowels. Of course this quip had to be removed in non-British editions, since both "Cat/CAT" and "Fiat Allis" (and other words used by translators who localise their editions, like the Italians) have vowels in them. Fiat Allis, from the Italian editions, is a Latin expression, so our Stationaire Nome in that translation would have mentioned the antiquity and prestige of Latin.
'Jekub' was the Nomes' attempted pronunciation of JCB, the name of a well-known manufacturer of tractors, diggers (earth-moving machines), and other construction vehicles, whose logo of course appears on all its products. The Nomes' Jekub, incidentally, appears to be a thing called a 'back-hoe loader'. In the US edition of the Nomes trilogy 'Jekub' standing for 'JCB' was changed to 'CAT', standing for 'Caterpillar'. In the Italian translation ("Trilogia del Piccolo popolo", where Nomes are "niomi") it was changed to 'Fiat Allis', standing for 'FIATALLIS', because the Italian translation localises the European portions (ie most) of the trilogy's plot as taking place in an ambiguous country, implied to be Italy, instead of the UK (much like the Western releases of Ace Attorney games takes place in the US instead of Japan like the source material did).
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