February 12, 2008: Alphabet blocks from China

Originally posted over in the humor thread, I've been encouraged that these are simply too mind-boggling to let slip by.

We're all familiar with the typical humorous mistranslations on street signs and advertisements in foreign countries, especially in Asia where the language structure is so different. But one would hope that people and products purporting to actually teach English, like a set of alphabet blocks aimed at children, would go through a slightly better quality check.

Apparently not.



The above is just the second in a series of increasingly horrific images, which really must be seen in its entirety here.

I don't know if these are funny or sad.

I had followed the link before, and surely these can't be real. Can they? The last several sets are just too weird to be true.

I would tend to believe them true, after seeing other examples of Engrish on exported products.

Most of them have decent explanations, when you work hard enough at it:

A backhoe for Navvy makes sense. Isn't the Navy full of ho's?

A Navvy was a originally labourer who dug canals (Navigations) in Britian in the late 18th century and has been applied to manual labourers since.

So trench digger = Navvy if you're using a 200 year old dictionary, like the helmet thing.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Beest So trench digger = Navvy if you're using a 200 year old dictionary, like the helmet thing.

Since ALL alphabet blocks available in the US are made in China you'd think they would have a lot of reference materials.

I thought the Volkswagon Rabbit has an all right repair record. Why is 'Wecker' underneath its caption?

And I went through turtle mobs. Very unpleasant.

A gee is not a type of horse. The full term is gee-gee and it's a British slang term used predominatly for children, but also in regards to betting. It comes from the "go" command "gee-up".

I'm still trying to understand why that soup can in my boot has an expiry date.

Quote:

Originally Posted by monster A gee is not a type of horse. The full term is gee-gee and it's a British slang term used predominatly for children, but also in regards to betting. It comes from the "go" command "gee-up".

But in the UK it means forward (or faster) and that is where the term gee-gee for horse comes from.

Quote:

Originally Posted by monster It comes from the "go" command "gee-up".

Those Brits talk funny, ya know.

Quote:

Originally Posted by glatt I thought that was "giddy-up"

And the Jalor ship should be called 'junk' instead. Just because...