While viewing this New York Times photo slide show on English malapropisms in Shanghai. The newspaper reports that for “the last two years, the Shanghai Commission for the Management of Language Use has been trying to clean up English-language signs and menus.”
Your first instinct may be chuckle at descriptions of an ATM as a “cash recycling machine” or signs exhorting one to “slip down and fall carefully.” But I have to agree with the English translator quoted in the story, Jeffrey Yao, that some of these signs sound quite lyrical and “provide a window into how we Chinese think about language.” It’s also fun to see just how phrases become lost in translation and the ability to convey kernels of universal wisdom — “keep off the lake” is one of my favorites — in refreshing ways.
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