Tired of Laughter, Beijing Gets Rid Of Bad Translations

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117063961235897853.html?mod=todays_us_page_one ^ | February 5, 2007 | MEI FONG

[NotJustAnotherPrettyFace]

Ah so. Gassy craters do you in evely time!

[proud American in Canada]

I was looking at that site but had to stop--I was starting to laugh out loud at work, and my boss is right here! LOL

[proud American in Canada]

Here's some advice for everyone on this thread

LOLOL! That's exactly what I was doing. :)

[shorty_harris]

Some years ago, at the golf course club house diner at Hickam AFB, you could order Pupus Wing Ding, or Fried Man Doo (I don't think they were Chinese, though).

[proud American in Canada]

I just passed along that website to someone who lived in Taiwan for a while. She said that once she was walking down a street and a big, tough Taiwanese man wearing a leather jacket was strutting down the same sidewalk, in the opposite direction, towards her.

After he passed by, she turned and looked at the back of his jacket. It said:

"Hardly Davidson"

[NotJustAnotherPrettyFace]

OK, so I know it's not Engrish, but when I went to Vegas this past fall for my singing event, the shuttle bus that took us from the UNLV basketball arena (where our competition was held - my quartet was 7th and my chorus was 2nd :-)) back to our hotel (Stardust... before they imploded it :-( kept driving past a shop called "The Parts Store" on the return leg.

Some joker had blacked out part of the P on the cheaply-lettered sign on the store so it read....

THE FARTS SHOP

.... which of course got a giggle from me every time. (I probably passed this shop and its sign twice a day for five days running.)

All I can say is... too bad I didn't have my digital camera with me for that trip.

[T'wit]

OK. Japaununese rufururong been MASUTARUFURU at Engarufuruish.

[Jane Austen]

Too bad. We all can use more humor.

[T'wit]

You never can tell what you could buy in a store like that. The following word puzzle, perhaps: HEIL, OLD FART is an anagram for whom? :-)

[NotJustAnotherPrettyFace]

The cities they are in allow them to have signs with this on it.......

Probably because their leaders have no clue about the true pronunciation :-).

[libs_kma]

"I wonder how the SportsCrowd is gonna like the wonderful air in Beijing ?? /srcsm"

I'm sure the athletes will be issued machetes to cut the air.

[stayathomemom]

Somewhere I have photos of a SWLSS WATCH SHOP and a box of QTIRS.

[shorty_harris]

When I was a kid, an Asian guy opened a store down the street, like a 7-11. He was a nice guy, very hard working, but his English was pretty bad. One day I came home, and saw that he had put up a brand new sign on top of the building. It read:

"Patty's Porn Market".

Business really picked up, I noticed, but the sign was gone within 2 weeks.

[r9etb]

Many in China regard the Olympics as the nation's coming-out party -- a milestone in its ascent as a global power.

That's happened before....

[NotJustAnotherPrettyFace]

Gee I dunno... all I can come up with is:
LETHAL FIORD

[NotJustAnotherPrettyFace]

Oh duh.... ADOLF HITLER....

O wha tah goo SIAM! :-)

[T'wit]

How about this politician? GROW A PENIS.

[T'wit]

Outstanding showing by the home team -- congratulations! And my personal thanks, since I was a resident of Vernon Hills once upon a time :-)

[NotJustAnotherPrettyFace]

Mention 1936 Olympics to me and the image of Jesse Owens, a friend and fellow high school graduate (Cleveland Tech) of my father-in-law's, standing on the top of the podiums in his quiet grace comes to mind. A big fat "phhhhhhhht" on the Hitler-run Olympics.

My father-in-law, who still holds the NCAA record for mens gymnastics championships (he competed for Univ. of Illinois from 1937-1940), loves to tell the story about Jesse dropping in on one of their meets. This was probably in 1939 or 1940, mind you, so Jesse Owens at that time was VERY well known, having won at the most recent Olympics.

The meet was being held at the Univ. of MN gym. Apparently Jesse heard that the Illinois team (with his old pal Joe as captain) was going to be in town, so he dropped by the meet to say hi. Joe remembers Jesse walking in the door and the crowd noise just disappated into murmurs. Jesse casually walks over to the Illinois bench, shakes his friend Joe's hand and says, "How's it going, Joe?"

The crowd starts cheering and stomping and then Jesse eventually realizes the cheers are for him and he gets up and acknowledges the crowd with a humble wave. Then he sits back down to cheer on Joe and his teammates.