Archive for Signs

How many characters does it take to say "staff only"?

In sending along the photograph below, Geoff Dawson writes:

I find it hard to believe it takes nine characters. Curious as to what they really say.

From a furniture shop in South Melbourne Australia.

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Toilet culture in Xi’an

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Don't Occupy Your Seat

With apologies for the glare from the plastic covering, this sign comes from the canteen at Lingnan University in Hong Kong:

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Open fire

Tim Frost found this sign last (southern hemisphere) summer at a lakeside in Argentina, near San Martin de los Andes.

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Omnibus Chinglish, part 3

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Omnibus Chinglish, part 2

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(A)tayal, Chinese, and English trilingual signs in Taiwan

Photographs by Mark Swofford from Fuxing District of Taoyuan City:

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Chinatown without Chinese

Diana Zhang was in Lima, Peru last week, and this is what she saw:

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Huge Pinyin on storefronts in Sichuan

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Orthographic-crosslingual pun

Xiaowan Cai received this picture from a friend of hers who is on exchange from Oxford University at Kyoto University.  Everything in all four languages on the sign looks pretty normal, except that there is a not easily detectable, extraordinary gaffe — or ingenious tour de force — in the Chinese.

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Another multilingual, multiscriptal sign in Taiwan

Mark Swofford sent in this photograph of a clever, curious sign at an automobile repair shop in Taiwan:

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"Marriage escape wheat egg"

Outside a hotel near Sanyi, Miaoli County, Taiwan:

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"Carefully Fall Into The Cliff"

It's been a while since we have posted on this sub-genre of Chinglish:

My parents are touring China and spotted this very thoughtful sign… from funny

(reddit)

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