It keeps hair away. Retard.
I write this with a smile on my face but with a great deal of humility. I can only imagine the embarrassing mistakes I would make if I had to write advertising copy or product/business names in Arabic.
That being said, English misspellings and odd usages are a joy to behold.
OMG, I mean WTF, LOL
One of my continual favorites is the OMG billboard advertising firm. The OMG appears to be used without irony on billboard with tie-dyed colors around Sana’a.
Many mistakes I see around Sana’a aren’t due to Yemenis. Goods from Asian countries, particularly China, are very common and come with their own uses of English that are still hilarious in an Arab context.
Product names are the best. I won’t even start with the excellent names for feminine products, but I did have to snap the above photo of the female deodorant: “Retard.”
What is particularly common is misspellings on the clothes worn by young men. It’s fashionable to wear tight shirts with loud designs and louder English. I’ve seen nonsensical words spread stylistically across the front of a shirt “New Fashion Man Style”, and I’ve seen “Efdfkkjyussjjjslldl,” which sounds like the name of a certain Icelandic volcano, but is more likely the result of someone sitting on a computer keyboard.
English is also fashionable to slap on to vehicles.
I’ve seen “Yemen My Sweet” on the windshield of a taxi. I’ve seen the entire technical specifications of a Suzuki motorcycle on the windshield of a minibus. I’ve seen “gotohell” on the back of a Land Rover. I’ve seen “NOT MY FAULT” on the back of a minibus.
Sometimes the English use is painful, sometimes it’s hilarious, but it’s never boring.
I love this post! My daughter used to work at a law firm that did a lot of work with international shipping. Some of the emails and letters sent to them from elsewhere were absolutely hilarious. Of course, I knew that those same people were probably laughing at the other end about what they were reading from the English speakers at the law firm.
Great post!
Misuses of English in other countries: funny. Misuses of English in America: infuriating and depressing (and seen daily).
Crystal
http://www.crystalspins.com
Oh, and Fuge…congrats on being freshly pressed. I kind of hate you now.
could you imagine being the designer for that? omg i’d be laughing alllll the way through
reminds me of the ‘Butok’ jeans I used to see in Brazil – with the label on the back pocket
Butok. Perfect example. This stuff is just sitting there, waiting for you to turn around, see it, and start chuckling. I’m still trying to figure out if a shirt that says “FASHION” across the front is fashionable. I ended up buying one that said “STRIKE”, although I’m not sure what kind of strike it means.
yes,i do agree..but some time it actually gives us a chance to laugh a loud officially !
Yours is the first post I’ve read this morning…thank you for perking up Monday. Hilarious. ~Heather
One of the hair dressers near my house had this “Good Behavior Hair Dressers”. I wonder who gave him the idea.
LooooL, this post made my day! I’m Palestinian American myself, and I am humored by the plethora of “English” grammar/spelling mistakes plastered on Arab products. My favorite? “Egyptian Homos”–referring to the Hummus dip exported from Egypt to the states. Here you are, give yourself a nice laugh:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_a9Jl1rLPMfs/Rs03usUi6xI/AAAAAAAAADU/MsQ-Pj2IptU/s400/egyptian-homos.jpg
Thnx again for this post, and congratulations again for making it to the WordPress, “Freshly Pressed” front page!
Enjoy your stay in Yemen
Rania Abuisnaineh
“Egyptian Homos” — wonderful. A Yemeni friend of mine pronounced it that way while reading a English menu at a restaurant, and I had to explain both what the item was and why I was laughing.
Just to clarify the “Homos” part… Hummus is made from chick peas, and the Arabic word for chick peas is “Homos” (which, I believe, is what the word “Hummus” originated from), so it makes sense that an Arabic speaker who is not familiar with the English word would pronounce it this way
And to Jeremy, great post by the way!! Absolutely hilarious and true!
Hair retard makes sense, when you think about the hairstyles on The Jersey Shore and such.
Engrish.com
Check it out, it’ll give you a laugh.
I love it when foreign countries use English wrong, it makes me laugh so hard!
Oh, and Engrishfunny.com, which could be the site you were referring to…or not.
Either way, I always give credit to those in non-English speaking countries who attempt to translate for those who do not speak the native tongue.
It’s also silly to see the cultural differences simply between North America and the United Kingdom…seeing spotted dick in a can at the grocery store always gives me a giggle…
“gotohell” haha! perfect!
How funny. At least they’re making an effort to use English properly, which is more than I can say for some people here in the U.S.
The Codger
http://thecodger.wordpress.com/
I have to admit I’d buy retard deodorant. But only because I could.
Great post. A friend is married to a Moroccan and has many good stories. My favorite, which sort of qualifies, is my home town paper which is notorious for it’s lack of editing, announcing the death of Diana, Princess of Whales. Oh well.
I forwarded this to my daughter – it will make her day. Thanks for the laugh.
No, thank you for the laugh. Princess of Whales!
I worked at a newspaper once that printed a court listing stating that a woman was charged with prostitution, when actually she illegally crossed a railroad. It was the court’s fault, but it made for a great correction.
You know there is a site called engrish.com where the site shows off similar pictures (only they’re from Asian Countries) some are funny some a little much though.
Hey there, totally LOVE it, am a fan of this kind of usage of English myself, but I always say – “hey, at least they TRIED”, else we wouldn’t even know if it really WAS deodorant, right? if you like and have time, check my post on similar language things/usages: http://sunshinediary.wordpress.com/2010/08/03/language-reflections-part-i/
thanks for this post though
Oh I can so relate to your post! Currently living in Saudi Arabia and see the same thing so often. I have recently created a folder on my laptop and am on a mission to capture a series of shopfront signs on camera over the next few weeks. I don’t want to leave one day and forget all the misspelt and misinterpreted English. Thanks for the laugh!
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We, Japanese people do that all the time too… Engrish is funny.
But it’s a draw since American people often misuse kanji (chinese characters ) too, on their arms tattooed no less!!
LOL, funny as ever.
LMAO @ something called Retard, i will have to get a can of that and hand it out to all my friends who act like…well…retards lol.
Funny you should laugh about these things when you Americans don’t even make an effort to learn a foreign language and truly believe you’re fluent in Spanish when you learn to say “buenos dias”.
Years ago I was in a shop in the US that sold Guarana, a Brazilian fruity softdrink, though this was produced in the US. The name on the can was JOSTA, which in Brazil means rubbish.
Thanks for sharing this– it made my day!
Terrific! I have to say that the Spanish are not immune to ‘odd’ English. In fact, if anything it can be worse than ever as they tend to rely upon e-translators. Unwittingly, the language produced and then used can be wonderfully funny…
This made my afternoon; I love misinterpretations and strange translations, haha… but I know I make them too; we’re all human, but it’s a great laugh to see some of the mistakes we make and that we have the ability to laugh at them at all.
This is great. Have you ever read the book Mother Tongue by Bill Bryson? He writes about English has changed over the years all the way back to Anglo-Saxon English using humor all the way through. What made me think about your post in relation to the book is that he also writes about all the ways English changes when it’s learned as a second language. The examples of Japanese adapted English are laugh out loud hilarious.
Take care, and congrats on making freshly pressed
nice post. sort of stuff happen a lot. even where i live. i just need a favour. i just recently started blogging. so i need a little support from u guys. i wud be really grateful if u visited my blog n commented!
eyedia.wordpress.com
Thanks for putting a smile on my face
Worth buying Retard as a present for someone else. Just ensure you put on an innocent face as you hand it over.
T-shirts are always good value. This next story is not quite the same as your theme. But you can have it anyway.
When I was teaching English in Kielce in Poland, a seemingly innocent very attractive 20ish year old turned up for class wearing a tightly stretched T-shirt with a picture of a rooster on it. The slogan on the T-shirt said: I like to be woken up with a big cock in the morning.
I agonised over whether and how to explain to her that that her T-shirt could be giving out the wrong message to people – as she obviously failing to grasp the double meaning.
Then I caught myself on and realised she was less innocent than I’d originally thought.
Great story. That seems like a T-shirt that might be hard to find here in Yemen, but you never know. It seems like most of the T-shirts here are bland, cheesy and, well, innocent.
HAHA..
I barely got past the photo before a fit of giggles. My husband is Egyptian, and he often receives emails that are much like the Engrish website of crazy things people have taken pictures of in Egypt. We enjoy it thoroughly.
I love the same mistakes, they brighten my day. One I remember in Kuwait, a villa for rent sign along the side of the road, a villa with ‘three flowers.’
Great post. (Still chuckling over retard…)
Congrats for being Freshly Pressed. It’s a great experience.
I share your love of English use throughout the world, as well as your humility (oh the mistakes I would make!). Facebook has an application that urges people to stop using the word, ‘Retard,’ as it’s ‘offensive.’ Wonder what they would think of this product and if they would petition to have it renamed, pulled from the market, or such?
Thanks for the laugh, good post!
nice
As funny as “Retard” is, it seems to be a French product, and as such, it makes a lot of sense. “Retard” in French means “to slow” or “delay,” similar to the meaning of the now politically incorrect “mentally retarded” and its cousin “flame-retardant” in English.
So, the hair product is “holding back” or “slowing down” the hair.
Basically I think the picture we’re looking at was never intended to be read as an English translation anyway, but it’s still funny nonetheless.
yeah men!
use of words
never fail to amuse us
whether it’s misespelled
ironic, or mispositioned
or simply drives us crazy
‘SLOW BABY
ON BOARD’
not so fast baby
I’ll never forget finding a tube of “Crust” toothpaste in Ethiopia. That kept me laughing for days!
Ooh, I always enjoy a post on botched English. I just came back from a 2 month stay in Shanghai (I worked at the World Expo) so Chinglish surrounded me. Looks like I’ll have to do a post soon on the funny signs and t-shirts I saw. It’s fun for me to see Yemen’s weird English usages since I usually only get to experience China’s.
Wow. Engrish. It wasn’t only in Japan!
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I have a friend who always tells me to give my husband his regrets
My sister lived in Spain for over a year and came back with some really clothes that had sayings that made no sense.
And her Spanish boyfriend’s favorite brand over there is “Yellow Rat Bastard,” which he insists upon saying (and calling people) all the time even though we told him it barely makes sense and is profane
HAHA ! Your post is hilarious. Being familiar with the common English mistakes around the Arab world, though, this doesn’t come as a surprise. Pointing it out is refreshing nevertheless ! lol.
Thanks.
I have a friend who always tells me to give my husband his regrets
I’ve seen so many similar posts to this lately where people are taking a look at English being used as a marketing gimmick in other languages. Very cool to see all the ways Westernization is going on.
Great post and congrats on being Freshly Pressed!!
http://sociosound.wordpress.com
โว้ว เจ๋งงงงงงงงงงง
I laughed out loud reading this. Makes me want to go to Yemen. (=
for more fun:
http://www.engrish.com
there’s also a link on http://www.syberpunk.com
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That hair product is hilarious!
It’s the same in Japan. I have fantastic green sweatshirt with “SPINUCH!” written on it.
Much the same in Syria too. One thing I’ve noticed that people like to put on their cars, apart from the standard “Mā shā’ allāh” and “Batman”, is “No, my friend”. I must admit I’ve no idea where it comes from and what it is supposed to mean.
I am an American who lived in Thailand and had a Russian Figure Skating coach…you can imagine all the English misunderstandings that occured there. But my favorite one of all time was when he tried to use the English phrase “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth”, and said “When a horse is gifted, you must not look at it’s teeth”.
I love the one that says ‘not my fault’ on the back of the bus, that’s too funny! I sometimes wonder how certain names translate in another language, I would think most of the time it would be way off and totally hilarious.
It does make you smile when you come across such things.. I remember seeing “Use Diaper at Night” instead of ‘Dipper’ behind a truck in Mumbai!
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haha, reminds me of Vietnamese English translations
I want that “Retard” deodorant!! Thanks for this post. I have had similar experiences in countries I have visited where American fashion is all the rage and so there are many bad copies of common logos and terrible translations on everything from t-shirts to messenger bags. Great thing is that you can find it here in America too. Have a photo that I used for one of my blog posts about typos. It is a bathroom sign in a Chinese food restaurant. Loved it. I attached the link in case you want to see it. http://freakcycle.wordpress.com/2010/08/02/a-series-of-unfortunate-typos-1/
Anyways, thanks for the great post.
Very true, this….
It sometimes leads to something called malaprobism or something like that… which is more fun because of the second meaning it conveys
Love this post, Jeremy!
I was horrified last week when my [8 yr old] daughter flipped my “Learn Italian Phrases” calendar and announced, “Hey Mom, the calendar has the word ‘retard’ on it today!” Apparently “Sorry I’m late” is translated as… “Scusa, Il retardo” :-/ [by this company, anyway].
And now it has become difficult to get her and (especially) her 18 yr old brother to stop speaking Italian
I feel like the Mom-Police will be here any day because… I think it’s funny, too. (Sorry, I’m retardo)
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congratulations acquainted awaited return visit
Love this post. It’s so easy to make those mistakes and when spotted they always crack me up
thnx
for u
مركز تحميل
I never understanf what chinese symbols are doing on a american or european hand? Sure it looks nice like a tattoo, but whats the point of it?
I have a friend who always tells me to give my husband his regrets