Archive for Signs
April 12, 2020 @ 2:15 pm· Filed by Victor Mair under Language and medicine, Multilingualism, Signs, Typography
From Brenton Recht:
I live in a city with a large immigrant population in general and a large Bosnian population in particular (Utica, NY [VHM: population around 60,000; between Syracuse and Schenectady]). As such, I see "BiH" bumper stickers once in a while on the road. Most of the Bosnian population either came during the breakup of Yugoslavia or are children of those immigrants, so they are probably following the American trend of putting round stickers on your car for things you like or identify with, rather than the European usage of using them to identify country of origin.
Read the rest of this entry »
Permalink
April 5, 2020 @ 3:28 pm· Filed by Victor Mair under Diglossia and digraphia, Names, Signs, Topolects, Transcription
[This is a guest post by Till Kraemer]
I live in Hong Kong, and many things are fascinating here, especially the way they use English characters in Cantonese. Some very frequently used words (including tones and everything) don't have Chinese characters at all, like "hea" and "chur". Obviously it's colloquial, but this interesting Chinese/English mix goes as far as official names of movies:

(image source)
Read the rest of this entry »
Permalink
February 27, 2020 @ 12:20 pm· Filed by Victor Mair under Language and gender, Signs, Style and register
Photograph taken at the Los Angeles International Airport:
Read the rest of this entry »
Permalink
February 6, 2020 @ 7:47 pm· Filed by Victor Mair under Signs
Four days ago, we were treated to the "Arrogant squid of North Texas" (2/2/20). The longer we pondered this conundrum, the more puzzling it became. We know exactly where the sign is located (23 miles southeast of Houston and about 10 miles west of Trinity Bay, which joins with Galveston Bay to the south), but we couldn't figure out how and why the "arrogant squid" was connected with North Texas, Southwest District, East Location.
Reader Sarah S. kindly took it upon herself to do a bit of research and reached out to the representative of the building's owner. Surprisingly, he replied with a (very strange?) message from the tenant:
Read the rest of this entry »
Permalink
February 2, 2020 @ 11:03 pm· Filed by Victor Mair under Language and geography, Lost in translation, Signs
Joe Tello sent me this funny sign:

The line of Chinese at the top says "àomàn yóu 傲慢鱿" ("arrogant squid"). That's puzzling enough by itself, but I actually found the English to be even more mystifying. It seems to be telling us that this place is in the East Location of the Southwest District of North Texas. When I try to figure out on a map of Texas where that would put it, my imagination fails me.
Read the rest of this entry »
Permalink
January 27, 2020 @ 2:20 pm· Filed by Victor Mair under Lost in translation, Signs
Sign in an Indian airport:
Read the rest of this entry »
Permalink
January 7, 2020 @ 1:23 am· Filed by Victor Mair under Errors, Phonetics and phonology, Signs
So asks the Chinese colleague who sent me this photograph:
Read the rest of this entry »
Permalink
December 29, 2019 @ 8:48 am· Filed by Victor Mair under Diglossia and digraphia, Language and business, Signs
Maidhc Mac Roibin sent in this photograph of the front of a dessert shop in Cupertino from Fintano's flickr site:

Read the rest of this entry »
Permalink
December 24, 2019 @ 5:41 pm· Filed by Victor Mair under Language and food, Phonetics and phonology, Romanization, Signs, Tones
I've eaten in this hot pot (huǒguō / WG huo3-kuo1 / IPA [xwò.kwó] 火锅 / 火鍋) restaurant at 3717 Chestnut St. on a number of occasions, and each time I go, I am struck by the creative sign out front:
Read the rest of this entry »
Permalink
December 22, 2019 @ 5:19 pm· Filed by Victor Mair under Language and food, Signs, Translation
Emery Snyder spotted this sign in New York City's Chinatown:

Read the rest of this entry »
Permalink
December 14, 2019 @ 8:03 pm· Filed by Victor Mair under Multilingualism, Signs, Topolects
Sign spotted by Diana Shuheng Zhang on December 7, 2019:
Read the rest of this entry »
Permalink
December 1, 2019 @ 11:21 pm· Filed by Victor Mair under Borrowing, Language and advertising, Names, Phonetics and phonology, Signs
Here I am standing in front of a hair salon near the south gate of Kansai University in Osaka, Japan two days ago:
Read the rest of this entry »
Permalink
December 1, 2019 @ 10:57 am· Filed by Victor Mair under Borrowing, Onomatopoeia, Signs, Transcription
Three days ago, I passed through immigration at Kansai International Airport (near Osaka). I was struck by a large, prominently displayed word in katakana (syllabary for transcription of foreign words and onomatopoeia): tero テロ.
Since I was in a restricted area of the airport, naturally I couldn't take a picture of the signs with this word on them, but I knew right away from the circumstances what it signified: "terrorism" — they were taking strict precautions against it.
Read the rest of this entry »
Permalink