Language Log

[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

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

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.

Café de Coral Advertisement with Hong Kong Cantonese Lexical Items:

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A post shared by Cafe de Coral (@cafedecoralhk)

(source: from their Instagram account)

Image and query from Hans Oddvar Vannes:

This Chinese article is about a man who has made a living by painting slogans and ads on village walls for thirty years. Some of the slogans are rather bizarre, as may be seen by looking at the many photographs in the article.

The article says it is such a well-paying job that the man was able to buy 6 apartments in his hometown with his earnings. Painting on walls is one of the major ways to advertise or propagate goods and ideas in the countryside.

There are many examples of such signs in the article, but I couldn't understand all of them upon first glance, so I wondered if the country folk would be able to read the signs. I asked a number of my graduate students from China, and they all said, yes, the country folk not only would be able to read them, but would enjoy them and would be motivated to buy the products and services promoted by the signs.

From Guy Freeman:

From Frank Clements:

(source)

Can you read it?

Sign at a shop in Changzhou, Jiangsu, specifically at the Computer City mall:

Mark Swofford sent this photograph of a dish on a menu in a Taiwanese restaurant chain:

Announced only yesterday, Alibaba has a new robot delivery vehicle for the last mile:

Tweet by Thomas Packard:

"There is no best but better". That's deep, Apple.
This is OEM @Apple , right? Gotta be. pic.twitter.com/pBu2Jzl0ll

— Thomas Packard (@sciencethomas) September 9, 2017

The Zeesea cosmetics company, based in China, is advertising three new sets of products "X the British Museum", in a relationship that they call a "partnership" and a "cobranding  product line": "Mysterious Egypt", "Alice in Wonderland", and "Angel Cupid".

I'm guessing that the British Museum's role in the partnership did not extend to input on the English names of the products. For example, the Alice in Wonderland Mascara collection includes ten colors, one of which is "Rust Red", advertised with the tag line "After coloring the United States to suffocation can be sweet super A strawberry jam":