February 12, 2008: Alphabet blocks from China

[Clodfobble]

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.

[xoxoxoBruce]

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

[glatt]

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.

[xoxoxoBruce]

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

[Clodfobble]

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

An armet is a two-piece helmet from 15th century with a moveable facemask.

A “gee” is a type of horse. There’s a line in Gilbert & Sullivan’s “I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General” from Pirates of Penzance in which the major-general rhymes “strategy” with “sat a gee.” A footnote to one edition explained that “sat a gee” meant “rode [that kind of] a horse.”

[xoxoxoBruce]

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

[Beest]

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.

[Flint]

Originally Posted by Beest

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

Maybe this is the best information you have access to when the government filters your internet?

[astrodex]

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

[deadbeater]

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.

[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".

[tw]

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

[JuancoRocks]

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".

To plow horses, the command Gee, usually meant pull to the right and the command Haw, meant to pull to the left, usually accompanied by "I said Haw you dumb bastard" at least that's the way my Uncle Pete usually said it to our two plow horses, Prince & Joe.

Kinda like port and starboard in horse language.

"The word "gee" in the Oxford English Dictionary has four
meanings, the last of which is a command to a horse. Apparently
this command means different things in different areas: turn to
the right; go forward; or to move faster."

[monster]

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

[glatt]

Originally Posted by monster

It comes from the "go" command "gee-up".

I thought that was "giddy-up"