Class, Sass and Signage

Tomorrow I have to wake up far too early to attend a class. Yes I already graduated from college but the Navy insists that all spouses take a Area Orientation Briefing & Intercultural Relations class. All I know is it runs from 0730 - 1530 from Tuesday to Friday. What will they teach us? Nobody knows. I'm sure it will be as deeply interesting as all Navy briefings. (insert sarcastic smile here) Rest assured I will let you know how it's going. Maybe I'll even pick up a tidbit or two I can pass on.

Now to more interesting matters. Before I left a promised a certain reader that I would ferret out and expose bad English wherever I found it. I assumed this would be an easy task since the Japanese love to use English on signs and merchandise. Much like us, they usually don't care what the writing actually says, as long as it looks cool. It turned out to be even simpler than I thought. These three examples are all from signage on the base. I don't mind that they translate badly in their own country, but on base you'd think someone would know better.

I found this one my first day on base and I have to confess I struggled to keep from laughing out loud. It was so stereotypical. I was glad Grant wasn't with me to say "See, I told you they talk like that."

As you can tell this sign was intended to point pedestrians along the correct route near a construction site. If you can't read the text it says "Side Wark"

I found the second sign on the back of a toilet in the Nex building.

The picture is a little fuzzy so I'll write this one out for you too. It says "Please place and the box. Automatically flush." Do you get the meaning? Yes. Is it grammatically correct. Not so much.

My final sign was posted on plain printer paper so the words come out all smudgy when I try to photograph them. You'll have to just trust me that these words really do hang on a construction notification sign inside my elevator and on each floor of my building.

"We will do our best for not making any inconvenience to you and we hope your kind understanding to this matter."

Rest assured. I will continue to expose these grievous offences against the English language. I can only hope the next examples will be found off base.

Oh, you'll be happy to know that they Japanese also enjoy putting French sayings on their merchandise. Grant assures me that they are just as badly translated. At least we're not alone.

I leave you today with the words of Federico Fellini, "A different language is a different vision of life."