Blakk Frogg has had the chance to visit a few places outside the United States and see how the English Language sometimes gets bungled during translation so these excerpts from an article on www.telegraph.co.uk amused him greatly. Enjoy!
"The manager has personally passed all the water served here."
"Customers who find our waitresses rude ought to see the manager."
"You are welcome to visit the cemetery where famous Russian and Soviet composers, artists and writers are buried daily except Thursdays."
Then you notice a sign in the corner of the bathroom: "Please to bathe inside the tub."
Sometimes you can tell what was meant: "Our wine list leaves you nothing to hope for."
Sometimes you can't: "Nobody is allowed to sit on both sides of the boat".
Sometimes you're not sure: the Indian hotel, for instance, that says: "No spiting on the walls." Is that "spitting" or "writing"? If the former, why only on the walls?
A hotel in Beijing tells guests they have "No permission to wench". Is this a deliberately invented verb, a discreet euphemism for the professional activities of a certain kind of lady? Or do they mean something else? If so, what? "Wrench"? But what could you wrench in a hotel room?
Other entries belong firmly in the "How did that happen?" file. The fake Liverpool FC shirts in China, for example, which have been meticulously copied in every detail, right down to the club crest, and then unaccountably turned "You'll Never Walk Alone" into "You'll Never Pickle Again".
Occasionally you're left in doubt as to whether the language is wrong or not. A notice in one Shanghai hotel reads: "It is forbidden to play the recorder in guest rooms." Do they really mean "recorder"? If so, why? Has there been an epidemic of people playing that instrument? Do the Chinese take particular offence at it, even more than we do? Is that possible?
In an Italian hotel, signs by the bell: If service is required, give two strokes to the maid and three to the waiter.
It is kindly requested from our guests that they avoid dirting and doing rumours in the rooms.
