Archive for Language and advertising
April 1, 2019 @ 4:59 pm· Filed by Victor Mair under Dialects, Language and advertising, Topolects
From Guy Freeman:
These advertisements on a Hong Kong bus (plastered on the back of every seat on the upper deck) use Cantonese so unashamedly, at least in their main type, that I just had to pass them on. Clearly advertisers still appreciate that written Cantonese is the best way to connect to the Cantonese-speaking masses.
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December 27, 2018 @ 12:28 am· Filed by Victor Mair under Language and advertising, Language and food, Puns, Signs
Photograph of a sign in downtown Taitung, Taiwan:

(Courtesy of Anthony Clayden)
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December 22, 2018 @ 12:41 am· Filed by Victor Mair under Language and advertising, Typography
Tong Wang spotted this poster in a Beijing elevator:
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November 8, 2018 @ 10:34 am· Filed by Victor Mair under Language and advertising, Language and business, Language and food, Transcription
Brand-name transliteration (in Embarcadero Center, San Francisco), courtesy of Nancy Friedman:
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October 13, 2018 @ 4:22 pm· Filed by Victor Mair under Bilingualism, Diglossia and digraphia, Language and advertising, Neologisms, Transcription, Uncategorized
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:
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October 13, 2018 @ 3:58 pm· Filed by Victor Mair under Language and advertising, Language and business, Language and food, Writing systems
From Nikita Kuzmin:
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October 8, 2018 @ 12:38 am· Filed by Victor Mair under Language and advertising, Language and biology, Language and food, Transcription
From a correspondent in Taiwan:
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September 30, 2018 @ 12:45 pm· Filed by Victor Mair under Alphabets, Language and advertising, Signs
Charles Belov sent in this photograph of a sign posted on the Pho 2000 restaurant on Larkin Street in San Francisco:
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August 25, 2018 @ 10:09 am· Filed by Victor Mair under Diglossia and digraphia, Language and advertising, Topolects, Transcription
Jenny Chu spotted this ad from a campaign for Nescafe currently being shown in the Hong Kong MTR:
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August 23, 2018 @ 7:11 am· Filed by Victor Mair under Language and advertising, Style and register, Translatese, Translation
This is from an ad for a new apartment building in University City next to Penn:
Wèi nín xià gè rénshēng jiēduàn ér zuò de gōngyù
为您下个人生阶段而作的公寓
"Apartments made for the next stage of your (honorific) life"
Here's the English version from the same website:
Apartments for the next phase in life
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July 7, 2018 @ 12:30 pm· Filed by Victor Mair under Language and advertising, Lost in translation, Names
Paul Midler submits this one from South China:
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July 5, 2018 @ 3:03 pm· Filed by Victor Mair under Language and advertising
When I was teaching in Taiwan in 1970-72, there was a well-known brand of toothpaste called Hēirén yágāo 黑人牙膏 ("Darkie Tooth Paste"). Not only was the name strange, the packaging featured an image of what looked for all the world like Al Jolson in one of his blackface performances. Naturally, I was scandalized by this, but when I asked my Taiwanese friends about it, they didn't see anything wrong with the name and said that it made sense from an advertising standpoint because the man had gleaming white teeth and the blackness of his skin made them seem all the brighter.
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June 29, 2018 @ 11:03 am· Filed by Victor Mair under Language and advertising, Language and business, Language and food, Language and politics
This just in from Mark Metcalf in Beijing:
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