• (cs) in reply to Joe Luser
    Joe Luser:
    DeLos:
    FredSaw:
    Remember: you cannot fall off the floor.

    Well clearly you have never been drunk enough!

    "You are not drunk if you can lie on the floor without needing to hold on." Author currently not known to this poster

    It's generally attributed to Dean Martin.

  • Anon (unregistered) in reply to FredSaw

    Actually, while looking for the Coca Cola thing, I got side tracked on to something about the Nova (http://www.snopes.com/business/misxlate/nova.asp). Apparently the story is apocryphal but often repeated. "no va" (doesn't go) and "nova" have distinct pronunciations in Spanish and wouldn't likely be confused. Also, there is a Mexican a oil company that still sell gas under the name "nova".

  • (cs) in reply to Anon
    Anon:
    Actually, while looking for the Coca Cola thing, I got side tracked on to something about the Nova (http://www.snopes.com/business/misxlate/nova.asp). Apparently the story is apocryphal but often repeated. "no va" (doesn't go) and "nova" have distinct pronunciations in Spanish and wouldn't likely be confused. Also, there is a Mexican a oil company that still sell gas under the name "nova".
    The story does inherently have the reek of apocricy about it (let's acknowledge the neologism). Still, it's clear to me that it's not referring to the spoken word, but rather, the written word (as in, on the side of the car). The mind works with it. Like with fuchsia.
  • SkittlesAreYum (unregistered) in reply to Anon
    Anon:
    Actually, while looking for the Coca Cola thing, I got side tracked on to something about the Nova (http://www.snopes.com/business/misxlate/nova.asp). Apparently the story is apocryphal but often repeated. "no va" (doesn't go) and "nova" have distinct pronunciations in Spanish and wouldn't likely be confused. Also, there is a Mexican a oil company that still sell gas under the name "nova".

    Right. And even if it was the same pronunciation, would people really confuse it? As the article says, would English speakers see a brand name of "Notable" for a card table set and think "why doesn't it come with a table?"

  • (cs)

    For the first one, the text was scrolled off when I saw it. I interpreted the graphic as, "No jumping from scissorlift without first attaching bungies to feet." --Rank

  • (cs)

    The warning about falling is a bit misleading. There is nothing wrong with falling...as long as you don't hit the ground. Somehow, I think it is a violation of my civil rights for you to dictate to me that I cannot (by my free choice) fall from a scissorslift! Where's that number for my lawyer??

  • (cs)

    "The makeage of this product is from the makeage of The People's Republic personages"

  • hcs (unregistered)

    Enable you to situate in the enjoyment as in dreamland.

    Regarding the "ear Michael", I remember the opposite effect with Babelfish, when I used "Mike" (to indicate a person with that name) it would translate it out of English as "microphone". Though I can't say I understand what the purpose of an ear microphone would be.

  • (cs) in reply to FredSaw
    FredSaw:
    AndStuff:
    I have found my new desktop wallpaper. Must remember to avoid falling.
    Remember: you cannot fall off the floor.

    Never seen AFV, have you?

    (America's funniest videos, for those who haven't seen it)

  • Jay (unregistered)

    I used to live in Ohio, where lots of stores post "No guns allowed" signs. People with licenses to carry complain and protest. It seems to me that the signs are both too narrow -- surely knives and bombs and heavy blunt instruments could be just as dangerous -- and too broad -- they keep out law-abiding citizens as well as criminals. I think a simple solution would be to instead simply post "No armed robberies allowed" signs. Then the law-abiding gun owners could freely enter the stores while the criminals would, of course, be forced to go elsewhere.

    On a tangential subject: I used to have a friend named "Koob" who once ran for office, so as a buddy I wrote a letter to the editor of the local paper encouraging people to vote for him. When I ran Microsoft Word's spell-checker, it alerted me that I had mis-spelled his name: the correct spelling, it said, was "Kook". Obviously a Democrat spell-checker ...

  • Joe (unregistered) in reply to don't blame me, I just live here
    don't blame me:
    "I can picture a robber, clad in his balaclava, going up to that bank reading to rob it. Only to notice the "NO ROBBING US!" sign, slumping his shoulders and sulking away, feet dragging, big sigh."

    Go ahead, laugh, but there are many legislators in the US who really do believe that a picture of a pistol with a circle and slash on it will have exactly this effect.

    Where do we see plenty of gun shooting tragedies? Why of course, in "gun free" zones. Not only that, but these panty wearing hippies even put up those kinds of signs in these zones: a pistol in a circle and a slash going through it.

    Ugh.

    Where did we see a gun shooting tragedy get stopped? Where other people were carrying concealed. Recently it was a woman at a church about a month ago that shot and stopped a gunman on a killing spree. Late 2007 it was a fellow shopper at a mall in Utah that shot and stopped a madman on a killing spree. I don't know for sure, maybe that mall also had a "no mad killing sprees" sign. Maybe the nutjob just forgot to read it, eh?

  • (cs)

    A friend of mine used to have a page on his personal site called "Make-your-own Engrish". The steps were:

    1. Go to Babelfish.
    2. Enter some English text.
    3. Translate to some other language (some work better than others)
    4. Copy the translated text and translate back into English.
    5. Hilarity ensues.

    He also frequently posted song lyrics that he'd "Engrished"...

  • Josh (unregistered)

    What's disturbing is that I read those Xbox earpiece instructions almost all the way through, parsing the whole thing in my head, thinking, "so where's the WTF?" until I got to the fourth paragraph and finally realized there was a grammatical error there. Imagine my surprise when I went back to the first paragraph and realized I had somehow put the words together into a coherent paragraph and actually understood the meaning without realizing it didn't make any sense. And I'm as sober as I get right now.

  • rd (unregistered) in reply to vt_mruhlin
    vt_mruhlin:
    I've also heard of a Coca-Cola slogan being translated to Japanese as something like "Coca-Cola raises your ancestors from the dead".
    I think it was Pepsi who once used the slogan "The Pepsi generation comes alive!"
  • v.dog (unregistered)

    Even better than the avoid falling sign, was the one on a bobcat-style front end loader "DANGER: AVOID DEATH" ( http://www.mlaw.org/wwl/index.html ).

    And as for Pepsi in China, there were several failures: Be sociable > Be intimate Now it's Pepsi for those who think young > New Pepsi is for people with the minds of children. Come alive with Pepsi > Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the dead Come alive! You're in the Pepsi generation > Resurrect! Your body will be made of Pepsi ( http://www.all-lies.com/legends/business/products/pepsiinchina.shtml )

  • panty wearing hippie (unregistered) in reply to Joe
    Joe:
    Not only that, but these panty wearing hippies even put up those kinds of signs in these zones: a pistol in a circle and a slash going through it.
    We'd rather see that sign than see the circle and slash of your redneck plumber's crack ass.
  • axoplasm (unregistered)
  • anon (unregistered) in reply to Ken B
    Ken B:
    Reminds me of signs I saw while in Boston a few years ago: No parking on this sidewalk.

    Yes, they actually said "this sidewalk". Apparently, parking on other sidewalks is allowed.

    In Poland, for example, it's quite common to park on sidewalks. I'm sure it's due to some bad road planning back in the day and a lack of funds to properly fix the problem now.

  • Anonymous (unregistered) in reply to FredSaw
    FredSaw:
    snoofle:
    It's not the fall that kills you; it's the sudden stop when you impact with the ground!
    Or what's falling right behind you...

    http://www.snopes.com/photos/gruesome/catdozer.asp

    [image]

    Addendum (2008-01-11 11:18): Hmm... apparently, the folks at Snopes get downright possessive about their images.

    Wait... is the guy in the 8th picture trying to reanimate the brain-missing corpse?

    Also, Toyota Pajero didn't sell very well in Spain, because "pajero" is spanish slang for "jerk off". The car was advertised as the "car for the real men".

  • Zygo (unregistered) in reply to my name is missing
    my name is missing:
    Another great warning sign was at the Raleigh-Durham airport, which showed all the things you could not bring into an airplane. Among the images was a lit bomb. The sign helpfully concluded "these items should be left at home".

    Or at least left unlit.

  • Zock (unregistered) in reply to Joe
    Joe:
    Where do we see plenty of gun shooting tragedies?

    In US of A. The "gun free" zone known as "rest of the developed countries" seems to disagree with your reasoning. :P

  • AnonJr (unregistered) in reply to don't blame me, I just live here
    "I can picture a robber, clad in his balaclava, going up to that bank reading to rob it. Only to notice the "NO ROBBING US!" sign, slumping his shoulders and sulking away, feet dragging, big sigh."

    Go ahead, laugh, but there are many legislators in the US who really do believe that a picture of a pistol with a circle and slash on it will have exactly this effect.

    And yet, there are a surprising number of people that are that stupid. How else could we get a site like this?

  • InnerEarDisorder (unregistered) in reply to FredSaw
    FredSaw:
    AndStuff:
    I have found my new desktop wallpaper. Must remember to avoid falling.
    Remember: you cannot fall off the floor.

    If you've ever had sufficiently violent vertigo, I assure you, you'd rethink that statement!

  • (cs) in reply to vt_mruhlin
    vt_mruhlin:
    The big no sign just reminded me of my trip to Italy when I was a kid. We went to a bank to exchange some currency, and there was a whole row of "big red no" signs. Standard stuff: no smoking, no dogs, etc. The last one was "no robbing the bank". It had a hamburglar looking figure holding up the teller, with a big red no symbol around it.

    I took a picture, but lost it somewhere along the years.

    During a class trip to Toronto, we saw a sign in a construction site. It had the profiles of several construction vehicles and below it, in big letters, something like "These are Stolen Often".

    Not sure why they want to advertise to the world the fact how easy it is to steal a backhoe...

  • Anony Moose (unregistered) in reply to alcari
    alcari:
    In the local zoo they have a huge rock that kids constantly climb on. In order to prevent lawsuits the zoo placed a warning sign next to it.

    "No slipping from this rock"

    With an explanation that slipping and falling would get you kicked out of the zoo....

    I still prefer the warning next the the alligator enclosure: people throwing objects at the alligator will be required to (1) retrieve the object and (2) leave the zoo.

  • Kinglink (unregistered)

    Did they really need to say "made in china" for the headset, I think it was obvious after reading a random line.

  • (cs) in reply to axoplasm
    axoplasm:

    At least there's not a fine for the durians.

  • (cs) in reply to nwbrown
    nwbrown:
    vt_mruhlin:
    The big no sign just reminded me of my trip to Italy when I was a kid. We went to a bank to exchange some currency, and there was a whole row of "big red no" signs. Standard stuff: no smoking, no dogs, etc. The last one was "no robbing the bank". It had a hamburglar looking figure holding up the teller, with a big red no symbol around it.

    I took a picture, but lost it somewhere along the years.

    During a class trip to Toronto, we saw a sign in a construction site. It had the profiles of several construction vehicles and below it, in big letters, something like "These are Stolen Often".

    Not sure why they want to advertise to the world the fact how easy it is to steal a backhoe...

    Some distant relatives of mine own a construction company. All their equipment is painted pink to keep people from stealing it.

  • (cs) in reply to Anon
    Anon:
    I wonder, with all the bad translation of Chinese into English that we laugh at, are there bad English to Chinese translations that the Chinese laugh at? Are their Chinese websites dedicated to bad English -> Chinese translation?
    At least related is: Hanzi Smatter, a blog which is all about people getting tattoos that turn out to say something else than the advertised profound truths in Chinese, and that sort of stuff.
  • djg (unregistered)

    Good one in the Perth (Western Australia) train station - above the information board showing the train and bus timetables was a sign sign saying "No Loitering". Didn't get a picture though...

  • PSpeed (unregistered) in reply to Choke_Artist
    Choke_Artist:
    My personal favorite comes courtesy of Dell. You can thank them for these warnings...

    the updated... [image]

    Just make sure to put your own bag on before helping your child.

  • (cs) in reply to dextron
    dextron:
    A friend of mine teaches a forklift safety course. He tells me people are always killing themselves doing dumb stuff with with those sort of devices.
    Well, they even made a (short, but hilarious) movie about that topic in Germany... :)

    np: 2 Bit Pie - Colours (2 Pie Island)

  • (cs) in reply to InnerEarDisorder
    InnerEarDisorder:
    FredSaw:
    AndStuff:
    I have found my new desktop wallpaper. Must remember to avoid falling.
    Remember: you cannot fall off the floor.

    If you've ever had sufficiently violent vertigo, I assure you, you'd rethink that statement!

    I didn't say that the floor wouldn't do a tilt-a-whirl impression. But unless "the floor" is an upper story of a structure with a missing wall or two and you start rolling around, you're not going anywhere.

    I think, in fact, the expression was coined in reference to people who have overindulged in the fruit of the vine (or grain, or hop, or whatever). Meaning, you can fall off a barstool; you can fall off a table; you can fall off a bar; you can fall off your boyfriend's shoulders. Perhaps the floor is, after all, the best place for you to stay in such circumstances.

  • Harkan (unregistered)

    I wish the second one was not that recognizable. I'm from Belgium, I speak Dutch, so most products we get are translated from English or French to Dutch by someone who spoke neither, and had to translate that same manual to some other 30 languages using .

    Some are actually funny. The last USB mouse I bought first recommended some serious abuse, by translating file as the wood-tool-type file, not the computer-type file. After that, it recomended to cart around on it as it needed a car driver, not a software driver.

  • The danish guy (unregistered) in reply to PSpeed

    You know some people (usually parents) drive around with a sticker saying "children in the car".

    But in Denmark some cars have the sticker "Living children in the car" as opposed to the cars with dead children.

  • Anonymous (unregistered)

    No weapons in the bank. Bank at Svalbard.

    http://www.hi.is/~oi/Svalbard%20photos/No%20weapons%20in%20bank.JPG

  • Gedoon (unregistered)

    "Made in China" You don't say? Although to me that's not a WTF as in a curious perversion in IT, that's just "engrish" and for those kinda things there's engrish.com, but whaeva, I do with my body whaeva I want bitch.

  • (cs) in reply to Harkan
    Harkan:
    The last USB mouse I bought first recommended some serious abuse, by translating file as the wood-tool-type file, not the computer-type file.
    Was it advocating a flat bastard, or one of those round mofos?
  • Anonymous (unregistered)
  • (cs)

    The "avoid falling" in the original article made me think of Valve's PC game "Portal"... :D

    And that suicidal Dell guy just reminds me of Strong Sad from homestarrunner... :P

  • (cs) in reply to Zock
    Zock:
    Joe:
    Where do we see plenty of gun shooting tragedies?

    In US of A. The "gun free" zone known as "rest of the developed countries" seems to disagree with your reasoning. :P

    We can all laugh at the morons who claim that "Guns don't kill people: people kill people." Singing: "People ... people who kill people ... are the luckiest people ... in the world..."

    However, bare statistics do not back up your interesting theory about the "gun free" zone known -- no doubt to bleeding heart academics and to little green men, and why are they always supposed to be little, anyway? Isn't this some sort of hidden form of penis envy? -- as "the rest of the developed countries."

    Canada, for example, whilst not spectacularly developed when compared to countries such as Singapore or Abu Dhabi, has a higher per-capita ratio of gun ownership than the Good Ole US of. It also has a gun-related murder rate roughly the equivalent of the UK and probably slightly below that of France.

    But heck, you carry on with your cherished assumptions about how these things work. God forbid anybody should suggest an actual solution, such as prosecuting anybody and everybody involved in shooting an innocent Brazilian dead on the London Underground.

    That would be too "enlightened" for modern tastes, apparently.

    Can I have my Ear Michael now, please? I want one of those things.

  • Anonymous (unregistered)

    Good to see Miss South Carolina got a job at Microsoft.

  • PeriSoft (unregistered)

    Way to go for the jackasses turning a fun conversation into virulent partisan idiocy. The venom spewing from both self-perceived 'sides' is destroying discourse in the US, which is ironic given how utterly sure those arguing are that they're somehow helping the public good by getting into flame wars which will never put forth any new ideas or alter any opinions.

    We will never come up with better policy via grade school name calling.

  • immibis (unregistered)

    It couldn't have been BabelFish, it's rather accurate compared to that nonsense. For example:

    With the earphone and microphone you can enrich your gaming experience like never before. You cn chat with your friends, annoy your opponents, and in general do lots of stuff you couldn't before.

    The Interrupt Descriptor Table, in a Pentium-class processor, contains pointers to Interrupt Vectors, which are random blocks of letters and numbers designed to crash your computer.

    translates back and forth to

    You can enrich your gambling experience likely present with the earphone and the microphone. Your cn chat with yours friend, causes your match to be vexed, with was you in brief before cannot many materials. The severance described the symbol table, is galloping a kind of processor, contains the point to sever the vector, is the letter and the digital free block is designed collides your computer.

  • Belvedere (unregistered) in reply to vt_mruhlin
    vt_mruhlin:
    My spanish teacher used to tell me about how poorly the Chevy Nova sold in South America because "no va" means "doesn't go" in spanish.

    Google it, it's an urban legend.

  • Joje (unregistered)

    The first one is not a WTF, it's a No shit!

  • Zock (unregistered) in reply to real_aardvark
    real_aardvark:
    Zock:
    In US of A. The "gun free" zone known as "rest of the developed countries" seems to disagree with your reasoning. :P

    However, bare statistics do not back up your interesting theory about the "gun free" zone known -- as "the rest of the developed countries."

    --

    But heck, you carry on with your cherished assumptions about how these things work.

    Please do not think what I assume. I happen to live in a country with a very high number of guns per capita but almost no gun related crime. The guns here are mainly used for hunting and hobby purposes, and the legislation on these is very clear. Getting a gun for self defence or carrying one with you most of the time are out of question - and that's a good thing, as there really isn't any need for such.

    It's not the guns, and not the people but the gun culture which caters for the high crime rate. And that's where the US, mostly because of historical reasons, has gone astray.

  • Mario (unregistered) in reply to Harkan
    Harkan:
    I wish the second one was not that recognizable. I'm from Belgium, I speak Dutch, so most products we get are translated from English or French to Dutch by someone who spoke neither, and had to translate that same manual to some other 30 languages using .
    Hey, that's my text ... I live in Belgium too...

    We should have a TV program doing that sort of thing again.

    Oh, did you have a "vijl" to install the USB mouse?

  • (cs) in reply to s.
    s.:
    For instance, the floor here will kill you. Try to avoid it.
    Good advice if you want to learn to fly. At least according to Douglas Adams flying is learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.
  • (cs) in reply to me
    me:
    A McDonald's "restaurant" here in Switzerland also had, for a time, a bright yellow disclaimer near the counter: "The money is located in a safe. It can only be opened in the presence of the money courier."
    That type of thing is fairly common, and actually makes sense. If a potential thief knows the guy behind the counter flipping burgers cannot physically access the money in the safe, they will be less likely to try to rob it (though if you are going to try to rob a McDonald's in the first place, you must be really desperate).

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