Comments | aadroma: Language Snob?

aadroma

Language Snob?

Jan 16, 2007 18:45

Is it really wrong of me to expect that, if you're going to sell something with a foreign language scrawled over it, that the language is at least not backwards or upside down ( Read more... )

漢字, furniture

Comments 10

nathan_r January 17 2007, 00:53:50 UTC

I used to feel bad about using inappropriate pseudo-Japanese for decoration. Then I went to Japan, and witnessed entire industries built around using inappropriate pseudo-English for decoration. I don't feel so bad about it anymore.

kumazuki January 17 2007, 01:03:00 UTC

Roger, I am with you 100%. I have seen some really cute items that I simply could not but because the kanji were upside or mismatched. I go a step further, if I'm in a store and they are displaying somethat is, to me, obviously upside down, I HAVE TO turn it over...

dr_tectonic January 17 2007, 01:45:17 UTC

My mom picked up some lamps at an estate sale that have lovely Chinese-style paintings of birds... and upside-down kanji.

OTOH, nathan_r has a good point -- if Engrish is sales-worthy, is a little faux-Chinese really so bad?

robearal January 17 2007, 02:25:58 UTC

The people who go to tattoo artists for something "Japanese" or "chinese" that get stuck with characters meaning "I'm an asshole" or something like that. If you don't know what you're getting, you deserve it.

muckefuck January 17 2007, 15:53:56 UTC

Has anyone ever documented this happening or is this just an urban legend? All the problems I've seen with character tattoos come from going to an artist who isn't familiar with the language, so the clients end up with something meaningless or deformed rather than something deliberately insulting from a malicious tattooist.

aadroma January 18 2007, 00:12:01 UTC

Well maybe not DELIBERATE, but I've seen some insulting tattoos that someone's had on -- and of course the person having said tattoo had no idea as to what it really meant. A certain bear photographer I know had a model who had a tattoo that read "SLAVE LABOUR" -- and he was very unaware of it.

kniblet January 17 2007, 04:21:54 UTC

We have two framed Chinese characters that arrived rolled up in a little cardboard tube with no indication of which way to hang them. We are definitely afraid that we've hung them upside down or, even worse, back to front. Maybe you could come over sometime and check them for us.

Of course, we'll expect you to pay the reframing charge if they have to be fixed. :)