Saturday, April 5, 2014

The things I find when I'm cleaning!



I was taking a few things out to storage when I decided to take a closer look at this box from our electric kettle:








Made me chuckle. :)

I'm still fascinated sometimes by how my native language is used as a marketing tool and not necessarily as a means of communication. English! Mark of quality, right? Kind of funny since it has the opposite effect on me; I see the weird grammar and think "low-budget."

Makes me wonder how the American companies do at translating their instruction manuals into various languages.


2 comments:

  1. LOVE this stuff. I ran across a list one time of gaffs that American companies have made. The one I remember best was Gerber using their regular photo of a baby on the babyfood jars, not realizing that in this part of Africa, because people don't read, the labels ALWAYS display what is found inside. :) Most of them did involve bad translations.

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  2. I've heard that one before. I suppose I don't see it so much as a gaff when they've just kept everything the same for different countries. To me it would be worse if they'd made a special version for a language or country, only to screw it up. In that situation I think it would be better to just leave it in the original! For marketing purposes, at least.

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