Language Log

Recently, Tong Wang's husband told her that he would not be home for dinner because he was going out with friends to this place:

More than twenty years ago, I wrote a science fiction novel called "China Babel" (still unpublished) in which I described a time in the future when Chinese would merge with English.  Judging from current usage, the future of the mid-90s is fast impinging on the present.

From Julie Wei:

Screenshot:

Image on reddit:

Jenny Chu spotted this ad from a campaign for Nescafe currently being shown in the Hong Kong MTR:

Karl Smith saw this sign in Taichung, Taiwan:

From Caitlin Schultz:

I was eating at a place called Yaso Tangbao in Midtown Manhattan recently and snapped these photos of Chinese characters and ampersands. I thought it was unusual!

From an anonymous contributor (photo taken at noon yesterday):

Pro-Taiwanese language poster on a wall in Tainan (courtesy of Tim Clifford):

Paul Midler came upon this scene in the Shanghai Pudong Airport:

Sticker at a gas station near the Richmond airport, courtesy of Jonathan Smith:

What's going on here?  How did Justin Bieber become an infix (more precisely tmesis) inserted between the "O" and the "K" of "OK"?