Engrish

Error message

Deprecated function: implode(): Passing glue string after array is deprecated. Swap the parameters in drupal_get_feeds() (line 394 of /var/www/pied-piper.ermarian.net/includes/common.inc).

Pages

AuthorTopic: Engrish
Shock Trooper
Member # 3368
Profile #0
The most hilarious article in my extensive travels in wikipedia

EDIT: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engrish (link won't work)

[ Thursday, August 18, 2005 19:18: Message edited by: Bender Bending Rodriguez ]

--------------------
"Like most of life's problems, this one can be solved with bending"
Posts: 287 | Registered: Tuesday, August 19 2003 07:00
...b10010b...
Member # 869
Profile Homepage #1
Your first link doesn't work because it has an ectopic colon in it, just after the double slash. Check the URL carefully.

--------------------
My BoE Page
Bandwagons are fun!
Roots
Hunted!
Posts: 9973 | Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00
Shock Trooper
Member # 6102
Profile #2
Better yet, copy the URL address and put it in your post. It's faster and better than trying to manually type in the URL.

As for the topic in question, if I'm not mistaken, has this article been mentioned before or was it something else?

...er, never mind. The second link works fine.

PS: It appears that some members like to use that Wikipedia website a lot as some of the unusual posted articles I've seen recently seem to come from there...

--------------------
"Truly, if there is evil in this world, it lies in the heart of mankind." -Edward D. Morrison
Posts: 220 | Registered: Monday, July 11 2005 07:00
...b10010b...
Member # 869
Profile Homepage #3
Wikipedia's an enormously useful informational resource, as long as you keep in mind that it's not always completely accurate.

--------------------
My BoE Page
Bandwagons are fun!
Roots
Hunted!
Posts: 9973 | Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00
Mongolian Barbeque
Member # 1528
Profile #4
That's one of the funniest things I've ever read! Thanks for sharing that.

I've been a long-time fan of garbled manuals from Chinese manufacturers and so on. I have a friend who works in the automobile replacement part business, and he often shares excerpts from the latest Chinese import manuals and catalogs his company receives on a regular basis. Here are some of his favorites:

quote:
We have a brochure from a Chinese metal fabricating company -- Dong Jie Industry Corporation Limited -- they make fuel tanks and other items for us.  The brochure has been poorly translated into English, and I thought I'd share a *gem* from the Introduction:

"These company make qualily part, and devlops the enterprise spirits and pursing perfectly."

Another winner from a Chinese manufacturing brochure:

"Dong Jie Brand gasoline tank is one of the high qualily products produced by our company's subsidiary one.  They are made of high qualily materials with pretly madel and bright colours.  The products are exported ouerseas, their qualily that of its kind made by other manufactures and has won good reputation from users both at home and abroad."

His sister was in China for a while teaching English as a second language, so I'm sure she inadvertently treated her students to some hum-dingers in the other direction! And now my brother is over there teaching English too.

I really pity anyone trying to learn English as a second language. It's hard enough as one's native tongue. I've studied the history and development of English in some depth so I have some idea of how it got to be such a mess. I really think more English teachers—for both American students and those learning it as a second language—should be more familiar with its history so they could explain to their students why the language has so many idiosyncracies.

--------------------
The A.E. van Vogt Information Site
My Tribute to the Greatest Writer of the Science Fiction Golden Age
Posts: 907 | Registered: Monday, July 15 2002 07:00
Lifecrafter
Member # 3171
Profile Homepage #5
Engrish
Theres quite a few funny things on that site.
Posts: 776 | Registered: Friday, July 4 2003 07:00
Law Bringer
Member # 2984
Profile Homepage #6
Currently, I use Wikipedia nearly as much as Google. And that's a lot.

Accuracy has never been a problem - perhaps the information I need is so widely spread and requested so often that it is updated and checked regularly enough. As a matter of fact, the only mistake I have ever seen on Wikipedia was a typo.

And the funniest Engrish phrase I have ever seen:

"If passenger of foot heave in sight, tootle the horn. Trumpet him melodiously at first, but if he still obstacles your passage, tootle him with vigour."

[ Friday, August 19, 2005 00:42: Message edited by: Aranfoolcaytar ]

--------------------
The Encyclopaedia Ermariana <-- Now a Wiki!
"Polaris leers down from the black vault, winking hideously like an insane watching eye which strives to convey some strange message, yet recalls nothing save that it once had a message to convey." --- HP Lovecraft.
"I single Aran out due to his nasty temperament, and his superior intellect." --- SupaNik
Posts: 8752 | Registered: Wednesday, May 14 2003 07:00
Infiltrator
Member # 5567
Profile Homepage #7
Aran, that is a rare phrase. It is one of the few that can make me laugh for a long time.

EDIT: My, my ,my... Laughing can make too many typoes. :)

EDIT2: Here is original post. Is too funny. I swear I didn't invent it. ;)
quote:
Aran, thaty is a raare phrase. I t is one of the fewq that can make mee laygh for sstraifht for along tine.
:D ;)

[ Friday, August 19, 2005 05:30: Message edited by: JadeWolf ]

--------------------
How many shapers are there?
Why is Drypeak controlled by Zakary?
Why is Barzahl a Guardian?
How does the Geneforge work?
What's as small as nothing?
Why am I asking stupid questions?
--------------------------------
Shaper teacher : "DON'T TOUCH THAT!"
BOOM!!
apprentice :*little voice* "Sorry..."
---------------------------
Visit CSM !!! And this site is just great! Wow! Did you know what the answer to the gretest question ever is ?
Posts: 576 | Registered: Wednesday, March 2 2005 08:00
Warrior
Member # 5699
Profile #8
Learning english is not so hard. It's actually rather easy. And the grammar is not so complicated. And the vocabulary is huge, unlike my own languages.
Posts: 54 | Registered: Monday, April 11 2005 07:00
Mongolian Barbeque
Member # 1528
Profile #9
I think the main difficulty in learning English—for those born into it, and those learning it as a second language—is the unpredictable difference between how a word is pronounced and how it's spelt. My brother struggled with spelling for most of his elementary days, and well into high school. And he's a bright guy, one of the smartest I know.

The auxiliary verbs are also troublesome—I'm still unsure of the corect way to express some ideas, since I get all the relative past tense subjunctive frellywhatever auxiliaries mixed up.

--------------------
The A.E. van Vogt Information Site
My Tribute to the Greatest Writer of the Science Fiction Golden Age
Posts: 907 | Registered: Monday, July 15 2002 07:00
Shock Trooper
Member # 3368
Profile #10
But spelling errors are not quite as entertaining to read. Errors in tense and conjugation are one of the few things that can make me laugh out loud via text.

--------------------
"Like most of life's problems, this one can be solved with bending"
Posts: 287 | Registered: Tuesday, August 19 2003 07:00
Master
Member # 1046
Profile Homepage #11
quote:
Originally written by Icshi:

I really pity anyone trying to learn English as a second language. It's hard enough as one's native tongue.
English is my second language, and most of you can't tell that it is! :P

--------------------
Polaris - Weather balloons, ninjas, and your big daddy Wise Man. What more could you want?
Undead Theories - Don't Ask, Don't Tell
Posts: 3323 | Registered: Thursday, April 25 2002 07:00
Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
Profile Homepage #12
quote:
Originally written by Icshi:

The auxiliary verbs are also troublesome—I'm still unsure of the corect way to express some ideas, since I get all the relative past tense subjunctive frellywhatever auxiliaries mixed up.
Oh, please. Who can mess up the past perfect continuous subjunctive passive? Had you been being given a hard time by this, you would have been foolish!

Oddly enough, I've been writing a grammar handout for the past several hours. My eyes are crossing.

--------------------
Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens.

Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me
The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever
Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00
Master
Member # 4614
Profile Homepage #13
I've never had much trouble with spelling. You see a word, remember the spelling of a word, and get good approximations of words you don't know and later learn you were wrong.

That said, I seems I need to do more Wikisurfing, seeing as I never have really.

--------------------
-ben4808

For those who love to spam:
CSM Forums
RIFQ
Posts: 3360 | Registered: Friday, June 25 2004 07:00
Law Bringer
Member # 335
Profile Homepage #14
Part of the English problem is the fact that we don't seem to learn or think about things that are integral to other languages. Conjugation? That's something bacteria do. Auxiliary is a military thing. Subjunctive is like a juntive, but less so.

But if I were to have attempted proper English, I would have to have realized that it's harder than it may first appear even when you split the infinitives.

—Alorael, who isn't quite sure what he wrote is proper English. He edited it a few times, read it to himself a few more times, and realized that it became gibberish in his head whether or not it makes sense. Hwætever.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Agent
Member # 618
Profile Homepage #15
Learning English standard is quite easy, once you get a hang of the fundamentals. It's usually simpler, having less tenses and so on, than other languages.

On the other hand, English slang and some of the dialects can be very tricky to understand, sometimes having no etymological root, in the language. Take the word "bling" for example, which has about five different meanings, yet very little relation to most synonyms.

--------------------
Aut Tace Aut Loquere Meliora Silencio
Posts: 1487 | Registered: Sunday, February 10 2002 08:00
Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
Profile Homepage #16
Uh, English has quite a few more tenses than, say, the Slavic languages. And from what I understand, the time structure in non-Indo-European languages works entirely differently, so that the Chinese languages don't have what could really be called tense. But the auxiliary verbs make life simpler compared to, say, Ancient Greek, which had as many tenses but no auxiliary verbs and therefore was forced to conjugate based off of many different stems for the same verb.

Our use of articles is anomalous; we're not as article-happy as the Romance languages or as lacking of them as the Slavic ones (or most others, for that matter). Our alphabet is probably the most heinous on Earth, although I have to admit that pictograms are probably worse, so East Asia has us beat there. Our sounds are actually somewhat worse than most languages — the short I (as in "infantry") and the short A (as in "apple") are both fairly peculiar. However, the Khoisan click languages of sub-Saharan Africa have us beat on that score by a long shot.

But then, English isn't so much a language as it is the greatest hits of all the other languages. Virtually every language on Earth has donated some bit of vocabulary to English one way or another.

--------------------
Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens.

Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me
The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever
Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00
Fire! Fire! Fire! Fire!
Member # 919
Profile #17
Yay for English! And Engrish for give joy!

Learning French, I have no idea what different tenses are called; I just figure out how to use them and leave it at that. What I love about English is there are so many different ways to say the same thing, and sometimes the wrong way is the most accurate. Thank you, Shakespeare, for authorizing the fabrication of useful words.

--------------------
And though the musicians would die, the music would live on in the imaginations of all who heard it.
-The Last Pendragon

Polaris = joy.

In case of emergency, break glass.
Posts: 3351 | Registered: Saturday, April 6 2002 08:00
Infiltrator
Member # 65
Profile Homepage #18
:D

So that's where 'All your Base..." thing comes from. I never knew until now.

--------------------
"He's mine, go get your own human plaything!" Bernard Black (Black Books)

Also look at my sitehere
This is also a good site
Posts: 650 | Registered: Thursday, October 4 2001 07:00
Skip to My Lou
Member # 40
Profile Homepage #19
I like to think of English as the circus of language. It's full of all sorts of freaky things, but it sure can be fun!

--------------------
Take the Personality Test! INTJ 100% 75% 100% 44%
Huzzah for the Masterminds!
www.Keirsey.com for personality information.
The Sloganizer! "Swing your Archmage Alex."
Deep down, you wish you were a stick figure.
Posts: 1629 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00
Master
Member # 1046
Profile Homepage #20
It's fun because of the freaky things... :nods:

--------------------
Polaris - Weather balloons, ninjas, and your big daddy Wise Man. What more could you want?
Undead Theories - Don't Ask, Don't Tell
Posts: 3323 | Registered: Thursday, April 25 2002 07:00
Master
Member # 4614
Profile Homepage #21
And English is obviously the best language. ;)

--------------------
-ben4808

For those who love to spam:
CSM Forums
RIFQ
Posts: 3360 | Registered: Friday, June 25 2004 07:00
Shock Trooper
Member # 5585
Profile #22
The worst thing about the English language is that it has a much bigger capacity for puns than other languages. However, I could be mistaken.

--------------------
Important Information about Stuff
Posts: 258 | Registered: Wednesday, March 9 2005 08:00
Shake Before Using
Member # 75
Profile #23
Japanese also has many really horrible puns, certainly...
Posts: 3234 | Registered: Thursday, October 4 2001 07:00
...b10010b...
Member # 869
Profile Homepage #24
There's also the famous Chinese poem consisting entirely of different homophones of the word "shi". While I'm not sure that exactly counts as a pun, it's certainly an interesting and elaborate use of wordplay.

--------------------
My BoE Page
Bandwagons are fun!
Roots
Hunted!
Posts: 9973 | Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00

Pages