Is engrish offensive?

[LynneSin]

I've posted some funny stuff from Engrish.com. It's pictures of posters and items from East Asia that has poor translation from the original language to English. I find it funny as hell but from what I gather some people find it offensive.

First, for those who might be offended - that was not the intent. I know people from Japan and even they find the site funny. I also tried using babelfish to say things in their language and well, seems the language butcher goes both ways.

But I wanted to hear from DUers - please be honest, I respect that.

[HappyMe]

1. sigh!

Really? Some find it offensive?

I thought it was funny. You know, I don't know what the dealio here is lately. People seem to have lost their sense of humor, and look for things to be peeved about.

[Denninmi]

2. Well, that's an interesting question.

There isn't a simple answer.

I posted on Politics 2012 about an ad former Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-Holland, MI) ran during the Superbowl against our incumbent Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-Michigan) which portrays a Chinese woman with somewhat imperfect command of English making comments about how Stabenow's policy positions have contributed to job loss in the US and economic gain in Asia. I viewed the ad and certainly see how it could be construed as racist. I think its mildly racist. It plays upon a stereotype. I'm rather surprised, given the nature of the Republican party in West Michigan, that they didn't portray the woman in a Kimono sitting in a laundry ala the Calgon commercials from the 1970s. That would have been more stereotypical yet.

The site you ask about, IMHO, doesn't play upon a racial stereotype, it points out the follies of poor translation skills and improper editing skills -- someone didn't do their homework. That is universal.

So no, I don't really think its racial. Rick Mercer, a Canadian satirist/comedian, used to do essentially the very same thing every week on Canadian television in segments he called "Talking to Americans" in which he would come to some US city and do "man on the street" interviews about made-up news items, to see if Americans were dumb enough to fall for it, which they usually were. The humor is similar to the Engrish site in ways, and its also along the lines of Jay Leno's "Jaywalking" segments -- it applies across the board regardless of race, religion, etc -- the humor is at the expense of the uniformed.

[HappyMe]

3. Yup. 'Literal' translations vs. the spirit of what is trying to be conveyed.

Lost in translation indeed.

[Scuba]

4. No, it's funny. And it's universal between languages.

[RC]

5. Why would it be offensive?

Some people will find offense in anything. This is another case in point.

[LynneSin]

8. I don't know - that Pelican eating a frog is pretty darn offensive....

[MicaelS]

6. I think they're funny as hell, especially when

There's cursing involved. Some people just like to gripe about anything. Ignore them. If they really don't like it, they can trash the thread.

[Norrin Radd]

7. Balancing the scale:

http://hanzismatter.blogspot.com/

[LynneSin]

9. I have a funny of reverse 'engrish'

I still play second life but mainly to help my friend run her clothing store. I can make about $30-$50 each month doing this so all you SL haters can kiss my ass.

Anyhow, we noticed we had alot of japanese shoppers at our store. The designer works with alot of colors and makes beautiful casual chic clothing. So on our store search criteria I thought we should put 'Women's Clothing' in Japanese - so Japanese SLers could find us.

Thankfully I have some good friends from Japan because one of my japanese friends asked me what the hell was that in our search criteria (refering to the Japanese letters). I told her it was suppose to be Women's Clothing. She just laughed her ass off and said it was not even close to that. Then she gave us the proper words for Women's Clothing in Japanese.

We talked about languages and how Americas are idiots for not learning 2nd languages earlier in life and how babelfish is the bain of bad intepretation. This girl had amazing english, she spent a few years in the US so she knew all the nuances. But even she found engrish.com pretty fun but reminded me that it was a 2-way street - mainly ameicans with tattoos where they think it says one thing but actually says something completely different.

[siligut]

10. Not at all, it is funny.

As you point out, poor/inaccurate translations go in both directions.

[nolabear]

11. All humor is offensive.

And all humor is protection against offense. We laugh about mistakes, foibles, agressive feelings we have that we couldn't say otherwise. At its best we do it with affection, which I think Engrish does. We don't think these people are fools, they just have a very funny and easy to have problem translating languages that don't match up.

I love humor, but you have to have a social contract about it, that you'll respect genuinely painful spots and that you'll take in the same spirit that you give.

[cemaphonic]

12. My favorite:

And I agree that it's not offensive, just a universal problem that everyone can relate to. Even people that are fluent in a foreign language will have an odd phrasing or misuse some weird metaphor or idiosyncrasy of the language.

[HappyMe]

14. Damn, that's a great deal.

What with Argument at $5, Abuse $6.25....

[Safetykitten]

13. No, but hilarious? Yes.

[woo me with science]

15. "Ich bin ein Berliner."

Whether accurate or not, that's my favorite example of its going both ways.

[TorchTheWitch]

16. I find it very offensive

But I'm more offended that people don't seem to understand why it is.

[MichaelMcGuire]

17. I'm a fan of spEak You're bRanes

http://ifyoulikeitsomuchwhydontyougolivethere.com/

its "A collection of ignorance, narcissism, stupidity, hypocrisy and bad grammar.
All the comments quoted were found on the BBC "Have Your Say" site. Yes, people really have written them. On purpose as far as I can tell."

[dimbear]

18. William Shakespeare, Mark Twain, Abraham Lincoln. All big fans of that sort of humor.

Or as we say, bad company.

[pacalo]

19. If I were living in Japan, or any other foreign country with its own language,

I wouldn't be offended when they laughed at my broken translations, because it would be funny.

[stevenleser]

20. I'm interested in hearing what various Asians think.

One of the responders said that if they were in China or Japan and they made fun of our pronounciation of Chinese/Japanese, they would think it all in good fun. I wonder.

My understanding from friends who have been there is that those countries are at least as ethnocentric as our is if not more. Perhaps in the first week or two, you might find the reverse funny. I wonder though if a year in whether it would still seem funny when it was apparent you were on the outside looking in, in terms of acceptance and inclusion.