Lost and found
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In the 10/4/15 issue of the Chicago Tribune, Eric Zorn has a sympathetic look at Chinglish: "Cultural sensitivity lost — and found — in translation". He offers the following sign at a museum near Datong as a prime specimen:
The Chinese reads:
qǐng wù fānyuè, zhùyì ānquán 请勿翻越 注意安全
("please do not cross over, pay attention to safety")
In truth, in China there is a problem with people climbing up or crossing over barriers and obstacles designed to protect them from danger, as evidenced by these images. Judging from the verbal warnings on these signs, getting the English translations right also seems to present a real challenge.
From this cornucopia of examples, I'll just choose two of my favorites:
And this, the quintessence of misnegation:
The latter sign comes from this collection of particularly fine examples of Chinglish, about one third of which I've already covered on Language Log. If anyone is curious about a particular item, I'd be happy to explicate it.
[h.t. John Rohsenow]
richardelguru said,
October 5, 2015 @ 6:16 am
wrt the second one: so China has a No Nothing Party that, like its near namesake is against immigrants (as evidenced by the image of a wall to keep them out)!!
:-)
Victor Mair said,
October 5, 2015 @ 6:43 am
@richardelguru
Brilliant!!
https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=know+nothing+party
popegrutch said,
October 5, 2015 @ 11:23 am
Misnegation – but I also found the top example to be a bit of a crash blossom. At first I thought it was advising us not to "overpay."
D.O. said,
October 5, 2015 @ 10:44 pm
Isn't it a common joke that the easiest way to make people do something stupid is to post a sign "Prohibited"?