Free Republic

Beijing stamps out poor English Chinese street signs Occasionally, a sign makes sense China has launched a fresh drive to clamp down on bad English in the run-up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Previous attempts to wipe out Chinglish - the mistranslated phrases often seen on Chinese street signs and product labels - have met with little success. Emergency exits at Beijing airport read "No entry on peacetime" and the Ethnic Minorities Park is named "Racist Park". Beijing city authorities will issue new translation guides by the end of the year, Xinhua news agency said. Running joke The booklets would...

Caracas 29.12.04 | Let’s see, young Delacour visited Venezuela for the first time as part of a ‘delegation of observers’ that visited the country (courtesy of the Venezuelan taxpayer) during the recall referendum. The ‘mission’ was arranged by the Venezuela Information Office (VIO). Delacour’s way of counteracting unfavourable press vis-à-vis Fidelito, er Hugo Chavez, is shown in the VIO’s website as the appropriate method to be used by innocent and callous Americans ‘worried’ about biased information with respect to Venezuela. Delacour ‘denounces’ (in a government sponsored website one must add) that US media outlets give more weight to the opinions...