Wrong way not to read this, please

by The_Cynic | August 24, 2009 at 07:06 pm
114 views | 14 Recommendations | 2 comments

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The authorities in the Chinese city of Shanghai are starting a campaign to try to spot and correct badly phrased English on signs in public places.

Chinglish, as the inaccurate use of the language is known, has long been a source of embarrassment for the authorities there.


I know we have - and if you haven`t then you haven`t been spammed with the signs - seen so many of the signs around the world that, well, don`t quite `get` English and with that, the Shanghai government are going to do something about it. Have the badly written signs changed to the correct wording - but to me that doesn't seem quite right.

I am not trying to be either un-politically correct, or for that matter anything else - but I, for one, love those signs. Yes you do get a giggle out of them, but - just to add my bit, there are signs around here that, at first glance, you do a second glance and read it again just to make sure. As an example we have a sign that says 'Slow Children Playing' - well without the comma it looks like, and we are talking politically correct, that intelligent challenged kids are playing out side somewhere. What the sign was supposed to say was/is, obviously, "Slow, Children Playing" meaning that you, as a driver, should slow down and not kill any children who could be playing out - reasonable.

We also have the "2 minutes to town centre" - that followed by the 1 minute sign, rather than the metres or yeads etc.I love them, they are local and bring a bit of individuality to the area.

I do hope that they, the Shanghai government, rethink this because, as I said even though it does bring a giggle and, true, a bit of embarrassment, the mis-worded signs are local and bring that bit more of a culture difference and colour to that area.

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Barry ORegan

You would not believe how very badly their English signage is, and I am talking Richmond , BC

Guess you get what you pay for!

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