You Are Living New Word Disorder
Local marketing’s a major moniker minefield. Indonesian branding is both unappealing and irresistible. For example, the title of this post is an actual tee-shirt slogan spotted in Bloc M, a South Jakarta mega market. I’ll just post a list of other shirt slogans we’ve seen, because they speak for themselves. I’m sure you’ll see more on this website. I love them dearly.
120% Bastard. - Help, don’t treat like that.
Surferer
Router Generation
A great party in Sunday evening I can give you some present and I think you will be surprise then you’ll know how much.
That’s why people pick up collections - will help make them more energetic.
Other side in very a night life grasp.
Skill of releasing real culture linked with evolved from exist of the globe.
We’ve also caught some unfortunate language on snack packages. “Oops” brand chicken flavored crackers are actually pretty tasty. I’m not sure I want to know what they think went wrong. Chitato, on the other hand, is a pretty clever name for chicken flavored potato chips. Durian flavored candy isn’t so much a bad name as it is a bad product. Sand Pie isn’t as gritty as it sounds, but it’s dangerously flaky.
In China, expats call such verbadelic translations “Chinglish”. I suppose the local variant might be called “Inglish”, but that would only work on paper. Okay, blog readers, I’d like to open the floor for discussion. Indolish? Bhasa Anglonesia?
posted by Chad at 6:24 AM
4 Comments:
how bout Jakringlish? or indonenglish? or englonesian? or englesian? neologesians?
I like the generic term
"manglish"
It seems to me there is a GIANT market for people who translate from Indonesian into English and make what was probably a funny slogan funny again. Then again, there's probably a market for just figuring out what idiomatic things there are to say and putting down their literal translation because some tourist will find the obvious botching of the language funny. Either way, a gold mine! A license to print....whatever the Indonesian currency is...
-- Stan
Ja, there's something about marketing speak that becomes poetry when it misses the mark so obviously. The tired intention of making money suddenly gets set on its end, and becomes a self parody.
Right now I'm wearing my most favorite example yet. It reads like this:
ROCK CITY NEWS
COVER STORIES
...free & real...
...shake a soul...
...for next riders...
...we lead world x treme sport...
...ride the rhythm...
...all's fair in love Wednesday...
Can it get much better than that? All's fair indeed.
I think I'd have to go with Manglish, since it's possible and even probable that these are actually Chinglish designs. There's a lot of Chinese businesses here. I'm glad to have a few synonyms, though. There should be many ways to describe this phenomenon. It's every bit as cool as snow, so why not invent even more words to describe the varieties!
Tee-shirt trade probably is a great idea. I could use US shiorts for bribes, and you could sell Manglish shirts to indy punk teens who can't read anyway.
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