Archive for Language and advertising

Crappy metaphor: slippers that make you feel like you're stepping on shit

Sign on the elevator doors of a Taipei department store:

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Invented Chinese name of an LA lawyer

Around 60% of the people living in the San Gabriel area are Asians, and the largest proportion among them are Chinese.  To attract the business of the local population, attorney Scott Warmuth decided to put up Chinese billboards in Monterey Park about a decade ago.  How it happened is described in this article:

"Column: Racial politics, attorney advertising and cultural communication in San Gabriel Valley",

Frank Shyong, Los Angeles Times (4/1//23)

Although the author, who grew up south of Nashville, Tennessee and who writes about diversity and diaspora, is Chinese, he doesn't say much about the linguistics of Warmuth's name choice, and some of what he says is misleading

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Taiwan Navy recruitment ad language puzzle

Photo of a Taiwan Naval Academy recruitment ad in the Taipei MRT which references the One Piece ワンピース manga series from Japan:

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Fusion food ad featuring fusion script

[This is a guest post by Bernhard "번하드" Riedel from Munich]

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Wawa

[Preface:  scores of versions of the Wawa logo here.  Take a look before plunging in to the post.]

Brother Joe told me the good news that Wawa stores are coming to my home state of Ohio!

Wawa's are great!  Anyone who went to Penn would know this because their stores are near the campus and their hoagies / subs, salads, mac and cheese, coffee, snacks of all sorts, etc. are tasty and wholesome.  I could practically live out of Wawa's.

Chinese chuckle when they encounter the word "Wawa".  The first thing they think of is "wáwá 娃娃" ("baby; child; doll") — note the female radicals on the left, but secondarily they might think of "wāwā 哇哇" ("wow wow") — note the mouth radicals, or tertiarily they might think of "wāwā 蛙蛙" ("frog") — note the insect / bug radicals.  The name just somehow sounds funny.  Cf. what we were saying about sound symbolism in "The sound of swearing" (12/7/22).

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Streeeeeetch

Packaging for a box of sweets that a friend brought to me from China a few days ago:

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Atomic Enema

Medical apparatus and preparation from Taiwan:


Source:  "Atomic Enema Gwoyeu Romatzyh", Pinyin News (8/17/22)

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"Beer is the most squeezed giraffe"

[This is a guest post by Nathan Hopson]

Today I bring you this cringey translation from the social networking app Line (developed in South Korea, very popular in Japan):

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Whole wheat partially

Package on a grocery store shelf:

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Chinese nationality

[This is a guest post by Bob Ramsey]


Eileen Gu is the face of at least 23 brands in China
She Made $31.4 Million in Endorsement Deals Last Year

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Will this magical shaker leave you shooketh?

Pictured here is a zhèn lóu shénqì 震楼神器 ("magical floor shaker"):

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Chicken hegemon

From Mark Swofford:

The back of a restaurant stand going up in front of the Banqiao train station as part of a temporary market for the Christmas season.

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Cantonese ad for teppan steak

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