Sunday, July 5, 2009

Everybody wants something.


Sure, sure examples of "hilarious" sign typos, usually taking the piss out of our Asian neighbours, are a dime a dozen. And, yes they are kind of the comedy equivalent of laughing at pratfalls. But at the same time they are capable of rare moment of great hilarity.

This one, for instance, cracks me up. I'm sure there's a sensible explantion, like a simple mistranslation. But in my mind, it involves a guy poring over the translation in a factory. It's a Friday night, all the other workers have finished and are heading down to their local for a drink. The saucy girl from the front desk, on whom our late-working-worker has a crush, is going to be there, and he doesn't want to be late. He looks at his watch, then at the sign, then at his impatient colleagues. Shrugging on his jacket with one hand, he scrawls a barely legible "something" with the other, chucks it on the pile and heads for the door.

The next day when the translation lobs up on the desk of the guys who are carving it onto the sign they look at the translation and then at each other.

"What do you reckon?"

"I don't speak English."

"I forgot."

"Well does it make sense?"

"Ummm, it's not UNtrue."

"Let's get lunch."

7 comments:

The Worst of Perth said...

I have unfortunately lost my photo of the ad for the hotel disco in Wuhan China which offered a "guest discunt".

Something is pretty good.

Anonymous said...

A discunt? Is that a cunt no longer?

my name is kate said...

Oh in my my head a 'guest discunt' is something you find on your pillow. Like a mint but, um, potentially yummier.

Anonymous said...

Having never tasted cunt or discunt, i can't really comment on that one too much.

Yummier though? Next time i see a straight man with minty fresh breath, i'll know where he's been.

The Worst of Perth said...

More like chicken.

Anonymous said...

So much for the tuna theory.

my name is kate said...

I can neither confirm nor deny.