The lingo of cool?

Adapted from Mind Your English, The Star Newspaper January 28 2011.

The lingo of cool?
By DR HASLINA HAROON


Using English may be deemed fashionable, but sometimes it ends up just being silly.

ONE of my students came back from Japan some time ago and gave me a piece of pie made from flaky pastry which was wrapped in clear plastic. I made myself a cup of tea, ripped the plastic and began to eat it.

As I was doing so, I began examining the wrapper, as I normally do when I am eating something new (not that the nutrition information had any effect on my decision to consume the pie). Beneath the words “Leaf Pie” was a description of the product. It read: “This aromatically baked pie with delicate sensibility accompanies with multi-layers repeatedly pailed up”. If seeing the calorie content of the pie earlier did not stop me in my tracks, reading the description certainly did. Can something be baked aromatically? A pie with delicate sensibility? I was stumped but not wanting to waste a good piece of pastry, I consumed every tiny morsel of it. The pie was gone within minutes but the description lingered on in my mind.

The funny thing was that a few days later, I received something in my mailbox – a flyer from a hypermarket, a leaflet promoting a new beauty saloon, and one interesting pamphlet from a local furniture outlet. The first two went straight to the bin but the last one seemed rather interesting. The furniture looked exclusive and would probably look better in a trendy townhouse rather than my own tired-looking terrace but I just could not let go of it.

The pamphlet was indeed impressive but sadly the same thing cannot be said about the text accompanying some of the products. Next to a nice dining set was the following description, if you could call it that: “There is gene filling around the view, it is as happiness, sweet and warm, and the thoughts are cleared in details. nobody knows where does confidence come from. Maybe it has thousands of resources, millions of embodiments, but when we are faced with the warm and real house, the confidence is easy to be found, placing myself into complete space, closing eyes, such as the extending branch, color stretching and white cloud disappearance field in deep heart becomes lovely soon ...”

I must have suffered extreme emotional distress and shock upon reading it, and consequently became temporarily insane because the next thing I knew, I was picking up the phone and calling the furniture outlet. The moment someone answered, I proceeded to tell her what was bugging me, and spent a good five minutes doing so.

At the end of my monologue, there was, for a moment, an eerie silence at the other end of the line. Then came a curt reply, “You want to buy what?”, a response that meant that there was really no point in continuing the conversation. So I hung up. (I kept the pamphlet, though, for it serves a purpose – whenever I go through my students’ assignments and feel horrified at the kind of English they were using, I would retrieve the pamphlet and compare that with my students’ work and suddenly all was well again).

The above are classic examples of English being used because it is seen as fashionable, because it lends an air of sophistication, and because of the mistaken belief that anything with English on it will look cool and trendy. In other words, words in English form part of the design. Whether or not the words make sense is a different matter altogether.

It is difficult to say whether what I’ve described above has anything to do with translation, as they appeared in only one language. However, I’ve seen signs with texts in both English and some other language that I’m pretty sure some form of translation must have taken place. I was at a bakery some time ago and while queuing up, I saw a sign which says “Tolong cuci sebelum anda meninggalkan tempat ini.” Beneath this sentence was its translation in English, which read: “Please keep cleaning before you leave this place.” I managed a small chuckle, and remembering the incident with the furniture store and not wanting to come across as a language police, I bit my lip, paid for my croissant and had a good laugh after that.

I honestly do not want to work at that particular bakery even if it were the last place on Earth to offer a decent job. Imagine all the cleaning I would have to do!

I’ve found similar signs with appalling translations in English on the Internet and I get so much enjoyment from them that sometimes after coming across some really funny ones, I laugh to myself, often with tears streaming down my face.

There was one sign which showed the picture of a woman in a bright orange life-vest, with her hands tugging at the cords attached to the vest. The picture came with texts in two languages, one of which was English, which I assumed was the translation since it appeared below the text in the foreign language. Although I did not understand the meaning of the original text, I’m sure it meant something like, “To manually inflate the life-vest, pull the connecting strings”. The translation, however, read: “Please pull a string when you swell manually”.

And then, there’s the sign in front of an elevator: “Do not use elevator, while causing fire”. An arsonist would take it that it’s fine to cause fire, provided that he uses the stairs.

If that’s not funny enough, the sign barring people from entering a construction site would definitely have you in stitches. The translation in English was: “During the work prohibition against penetration”. Although I can come up with at least two possible interpretations of the sentence, I’m pretty sure what it really meant was “Do not enter while work is in progress”.

The thing about translation is that it requires not just an understanding of the source language but also the ability to write well in the target language. And taking about writing well, I realised from looking at the website where I found all those funny signs that the misspellings of some food items sometimes achieve a certain unintended humour. How could you not laugh at a restaurant menu featuring “french flies”, “lice omlet”, “fried crap”, and to top it all “flesh juice“.

Of course, none can compete with that shop selling “uncared ham” (that poor neglected pig!). I think what it meant was “uncured ham”. And what about the water dispenser with labels specifying where people can get “HOT WALTER” and “CHILLED WALTER” (obviously, Walter’s been badly abused).

And then, there was a poster featuring an assortment of cheese, and in big bold letters were the words “CHEESE FEAR” (Aaaarghh! I’ve always been terrified of mozzarella and cheddar). Of course, what they really meant was “CHEESE FAIR”.

I discussed this with my son at home, hoping that I would be able to impress upon him the importance of being able to write and spell well. Later that same evening, we went out for dinner at a newly-opened restaurant not far from the house. What was meant to be a good time out with the family, dining on good food, soon turned into an opportunity for a spelling lesson. The children and I nevertheless really enjoyed our “lamp chop”. As for the husband, although the item he chose from the menu filled him with a certain amount of trepidation, he nevertheless found his “rip eye steak” to be extremely enjoyable.

> Dr Haslina Haroon is a lecturer in Translation Studies at the School of Humanities, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang.