{"id":177,"date":"2008-11-07T23:50:47","date_gmt":"2008-11-07T14:50:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.davidhed.com\/blog\/?p=177"},"modified":"2008-11-08T21:49:38","modified_gmt":"2008-11-08T12:49:38","slug":"engrish-threads","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.davidhed.com\/blog\/2008\/11\/07\/engrish-threads\/","title":{"rendered":"Engrish threads"},"content":{"rendered":"

Since there’s no way I’m going to let a whole month go by without a blog post, I thought I’d toss up a quick post about clothes here in Japan. Specifically, clothes that have Engrish on them. There seems to be no market for clothing with correctly written English, as it’s used almost exclusively as a design element rather than a method of conveying meaning. That, combined with the facts that English is “cool” and that the vast majority of Japanese people can only derive a rude meaning from a string of English words, means that there are a lot of Japanese people showing off their “English” (and very often pseudo-American) clothes without knowing what abuses of the English language are actually written on them.<\/p>\n

When I see English in Japan, I’m genuinely surprised if it isn’t rife with errors. I couldn’t possibly hope to document it all, but when I have my camera, I try to capture the gems. The first few pictures you see are pictures of my students I took in my classroom. You can’t really read all of them in the scaled down versions, so I typed out the contents. I tried to help as much as I could through punctuation, though it didn’t often help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/td>\nLEFT: Surf riding goodstream, Professing skilled profession
\nRIGHT: Stinson Beach, California: The Wave is Forever<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
<\/a><\/td>\nFrom left to right:<\/i>
Individual For Pleasure Only
Guaranteed to fit better D.O.Daddy 65
Twist frontside [Remainder illegible due to shirt fold]<\/i>
It takes a little more to make a Champion. Champion authentic athletic apparel<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
<\/a><\/td>\nSTAYING, you are on the verge of salvation! You are on the verge of salvation! When it is made to revive vividly, ground at a sense beyond the word stands up and appears that shaft line the world.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
<\/a><\/td>\nLEFT: [New York Yankees logo on polo shirt breast<\/i>]
RIGHT: SAMURAI Japan<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
<\/a><\/td>\nImpregnerade SAMURAI s\u00c3\u00a4kerhets-tandstickor safety matches<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
<\/a><\/td>\nLEFT: Wask 22
RIGHT: Pour les enfants hushush Avoir le coeur leger<\/p>\n

Included just because they’re goofballs. \ud83d\ude42<\/i><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

<\/a><\/td>\nLong and [obscured<\/i>] condition (?) PARADISE for the sake of attaining SUNSET BEACH, surfing least much comes<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
<\/a><\/td>\nThe Eastboy go in the future begin to walk. The words that give me hope. A friend in need is a friend indeed. When I was troubled, I encourage it. As for you, how many “friends” are there?<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
<\/a><\/td>\nEngrish isn’t limited to clothing, as this bag proves. I love the American Nutrition Facts label.<\/i><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
<\/a><\/td>\nIT’S NEW, Honey sweet. Would you like a NATIONAL BISCUIT? You will be crazy about Rich Flavor! Special Value<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
<\/a><\/td>\nBurger Special<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
<\/a><\/td>\nGLUTTONS Special mega burger<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
<\/a><\/td>\nFrom left:
[top illegible<\/i>] 1970 GRATEFUL ROSES: It’a [sic] Beautiful In Black
Pia angel 08
[upper French obscured<\/i>] esprit de paris 1998, TR\u00c3\u02c6S BON!!<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
<\/a><\/td>\nGRATEFUL ROSES: It’a [sic] Beautiful In Black<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
<\/a><\/td>\nI certainly can’t fault my students for wearing clothes with broken English. Here’s what they have to choose from when they go shopping:<\/i>
CRESCENT- Full of energy, Galaxy Grobal [sic] Universe, Starry night, Catch your dream
Cleared up, it is fine today. THE SKY CLEARED UP BEAUTIFULLY. The tree leaves glistened after the rain.
Lustrous Cherry lips from you
WIND PURSUE lack of ability
Excellent Clear Sight, Magnificent Scenes
I MADE A PROMISE WITH HER ON THURSDAY
Artlessness & Fleckle<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
<\/a><\/td>\nDelight smile and friendly competing with each other<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
<\/a><\/td>\nLet me take a moment to give you an example of the “height” of fashion in Matsuyama. Note the “man bag” clipped to a belt loop, embroidered jeans (with bonus sewn-up hole) tucked into cowboy boots, and poofy, bleached “Lion King” hairdo.<\/i><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
<\/a><\/td>\nRock the World with you [the text is from a song of this name<\/i>]
\nWe gotta know we’re on the run
I just grab your stuff, and in a minute we’ll be gone
We’re gonna pull away like strangers,
but soon the world will know
How far this kinda love could ever go
Remember what I say
Baby don’t matter what they do<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

There’s always more Engrish to be had, so I’m sure I’ll post plenty of it in the future. I need to get some sleep though, so I’m going to pull away like a stranger. \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Since there’s no way I’m going to let a whole month go by without a blog post, I thought I’d toss up a quick post about clothes here in Japan. Specifically, clothes that have Engrish on them. There seems to be no market for clothing with correctly written English, as it’s used almost exclusively as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[61,3],"tags":[98,99,11,387],"class_list":["post-177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-life","category-japan","tag-clothes","tag-english","tag-engrish","tag-japan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.davidhed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.davidhed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.davidhed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.davidhed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.davidhed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=177"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/www.davidhed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":185,"href":"http:\/\/www.davidhed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177\/revisions\/185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.davidhed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.davidhed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.davidhed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}