Some Things Just Don't Translate

I think I’ve been a touch too serious lately. At any rate, I needed to lighten up, and maybe my blog does, too. I nearly pulled a belly muscle browsing the “adult” section of Engrish.com. It’s all in pretty terrible taste. That’s the point.

Anyway, here’s a little sample. This one might make a splash in the classroom when I teach about the beauty ideal, dontcha think?

(From Engrish.com)

And this sounds like a delightful contrast to all that heavy Thanksgiving fare … yum!

(Also from Engrish.com)

I’ve admittedly got a weakness for this sort of thing** after living in Germany, where similarly tasteless slogans popped up on the occasional T-shirt, along with just plain goofy logos like the “San Francisco Fifty-Niners.” I think people get their ideas of socially acceptable English partly from R-rated movies (oops!). The translator in me is smugly gleeful, knowing that the world will always need translators who are adept in both language and culture.

(** Language bloopers, I mean – what did you think? Oh, the tofu. Right.)