Are you ready for some "Mei shi gan lan qiu"? The NFL is intent on finding out if that is indeed the case in China. The league is venturing into untested territory and hoping the country's vast marketplace will respond to its product. Clearly, there are details to sort out. For one, the language. The sport's vocabulary may resonate from Maine to Maui, but it's a poor fit in Chinese. This, after all, is a country where American football is largely unknown. "We've had to come up with an entirely new nomenclature for the sport," Gordon Smeaton, an NFL vice president, said Friday during a promotional tour with the New England Patriots. "This is a situation we don't face in any other country and it will take some time." For the record, in Chinese the game is known as "Mei shi gan lan qiu," which can mean "American-style rugby" or "American-style olive-shaped ball," depending on the translation.