9 May, 2008
this won't be on Engrish.com
This won't go on Engrish.com website.
(click above image for larger photo)
Firstly, sorry for the poor photo quality. It was taken by my outdated Sony Ericsson K750i mobile phone.
This photo simply won't go onto the arrogant native English speakers' favourite Engrish.com website, a website dedicated to poke fun and make a big fuss on some Asian's non-perfect English. And the above photo was taken in an Australian green grocers which is not by Asians. Had a similar photo taken (with similar English grammar issues).
Haven't spotted the English/Engrish issue? Please keep reading.
Engrish.com is well known for targeting Asian's non-perfect English. I believe it is safe to say that Asian languages do not share many similarities as European languages with English. And for many Asians, the sounds "r" and "l" may be hard to distinguish. It is true that not all Asians were well educated in English speaking environment or have opportunity to master English. And their broken English is without a doubt a big joke for arrogant native English speakers' favourite Engrish.com website.
People in Asia tried to provide signs for English speakers, occasionally, the guy who made the signs do not speak perfect English, or simply do not have enough resource to the English translations verified. The result is something called “Chinglish” where they translate word by word without following proper sentence structure and in many cases, poor choices of words. Arrogant native English speakers at Engrish.com showed absolutely no appreciations to those tried to provide information (in signs) for English speakers.
If you dig down in Engrish.com, you will find a number of photos featured there showed no spelling errors and no grammar mistakes. A few photos are not even English (or any language) related, but all featured there simply they are not English speakers or westerners.
Would Engrish.com make similar fun on non-Asian's less-than-acceptable English? I highly doubt so. Simply they targets Asians, Japanese and Chinese in particular.
Now, back to the photo. As I mentioned earlier, the photo simply won't get listed in Engrish.com because it is not from a Japanese grocery store. The problem?
The shop sells banana capsicums, yellow & orange capsicum, green capsicum and red capsicums. (There was an ‘s’ at end of red capsicums, sorry for cutting the letter off.) It is clear that “capsicum” is a countable noun, and it has a plural form, capsicums. Shouldn't the shop either keep all the capsicum price signs in singular or keep them in plural?
The English (shown in the photo above) won't be placed under scrutiny by those arrogant native English speakers, simply it wasn't in Japan or any Asian country, and the shop wasn't owned by Asians.
The conclusion, Engrish.com appears to be racist website (with Asian's English is laughable umbrella) to me. Antony does not speak English.
This entry has Lightbox effect enabled. Click on the thumbnails for larger photos.related blog entries:
Journey of Harm arrived yesterday (24 April, 2008)
Antony does not speak English (9 April, 2008)
more May 2008 blogs. (or 2008 blogs)
from iTunes Store:
There is no such thing as the "arrogant native English speakers beloved Engrish.com", per se.
It was established by a person who had spent a number of years living in Japan (like me)pointing out how commercial Japan has problems with getting names for products etc due to their limited scripts for writing new product names in a tough marketing environment.
The site does not make malicious attacks on any nationality and was designed for "fun only". Poor English which helps in communication between people for establishing friendship and citizenship is not under attack here.
There are other sites that pillory English speakers pathetic use of their own tongue.
Lighten up, or the lemote village peopre will be offended.
Posted by Don_HH2K on 9 May 2008 12:08 PM.
I can give you one true example I experienced which was related to this photo... I had dinner once with a native English speaker in a Chinese restaurant. He noticed that the menu says "... with vegetable". And that guy told me this restaurant must be stingy, they only give you one vegetable. This guy simply won't examine the English in shops which aren't owned or operated by Asians.
Double standards? Perhaps, but actually targeting Asians.
Posted by Antony Shen on 9 May 2008 12:51 PM.
Otherwise get over it, you are becoming very annoying lately!
And I mean that in the nicest possible way. :-)
Posted by Rev. Dr. Wu Yi on 9 May 2008 12:56 PM.
They were a colonial power in Asia, and no doubt had some fun with the local languages.
Posted by Rev. Dr. Wu Yi on 9 May 2008 4:47 PM.
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