Last Laugh: Towers of Babble

English is the closest thing we have to a universal language since Latin and the Roman Empire. Anywhere between 700 million and a billion people speak English around the world. At least they try to. The novelist John Steinbeck’s best known book is The Grapes of Wrath.

Steinbeck’s wife liked to go into bookstores to look for books written by her husband. Once when in Japan, she asked a bookstore clerk if the store carried any of his books. After checking, the clerk said, “Yes, we have Angry Raisins.” The response brought forth laughter, not wrath, from Mrs. Steinbeck. We venture abroad because we enjoy discovering differences. Even English. Travel can be hard work, as any road warrior will tell you. But travel can be fun, too, especially if you are open to the fractured English of the country you are visiting. One of the many pleasures of travel is that of reading and hearing Tinglish, or “tourist English,” the developing world language of tourism to which post-war air travel has given such a tremendous boost.

  • In the 1960s, tourists in Leningrad read this sign: “This is Leningrad Airport and you are welcome to it.”
  • In the Shanghai Airport you will still see the sign “The drinking water in this airport has been passed by the Quarantine Authorities.”
  • An Indian guidebook informs the tourist that “Emperor Jehangir had 7,000 ladies in the harem. As he was a talented drunkard and a luxurious man he died in 1627 at the age of 57.”
  • A sign in Florence, Italy, cautions, “You are in a monumental palace, alike an Ufitzi’s galley of Florence.You are therefore kindly requested to behave consequently.”

English is spoken widely, but not always well. It is univerally acknowledged by foreign students of our language that English is tough stuff—dotted with potholes, pitfalls, and pratfalls for the second-language speaker and writer, even self-proclaimed experts. Consider these advertisements from professional interpreters:

  • Are you unable to express you in English? I can help you in the right earnest!
  • We guarantee strickly confidentiality.
  • I do professional translations from and to English, Spanish, French, and Creole. I don’t use softwares, and get you a job that is grammatically, and syntaxically perfect.

And consider these foreign commercial messages broadcast from the Tower of
Babble:

  • A sign in Cairo, Egypt, advertising a donkey ride for tourists: “Would you like to ride on your own ass?”
  • An herbalist’s catalogue in Venice advertises: “Make Thin! Obesity is a well known trouble. Fat people must not take around a majestic fatness, wearing large suits, perspirating too much.”
  • A sign outside a Turkish bath in Rome beckons, “Be pleased to come lie down with our masseuse. She will make you forget all your tired.”
  • Travelers to sun-drenched Aman, Jordan, are invited to cool off in “The Shadiest Cocktail Bar in Town.”
  • In the heart of the same downtown, a sign advises tourists to “Visit our bargain basement—one flight up.” Enter and you will find “Pork Handbags” on sale.
  • The wrapper of an ice-cream bar made in Russia cautions: “Do not taste our Ice Cream when it is too hard. Please continue your conversation until the Ice Cream grows into a softer. By adhering this advisement you will fully appreciate the wonderful Soviet Ice Cream.”
  • An Israeli professor advertised, “41, with 18 years of teaching in my behind. Looking for American-born woman who speaks English very good,”
  • A want-ad in an Indian newspaper made this unusual offer: “For sale to kind master: Full grown tigress, goes daily walk untied, and eats flesh from hand.”

Few are the travelers who have not, at one time or another, chuckled at a botched translation they’ve encountered somewhere abroad. More often than not, the Tinglish error —and the English terror—has leapt out of a hotel brochure or sign:

  • In a Kalimantan, Indonesia, travel agency brochure: Far up the river your journey is through mostly primary forest with impenetrable undergrowth, Giant Orchids, Mangrove flowers, huge tress with puthon crapping for branches and tropical bulfrongs.
  • In a promotional folder for a resort at Iguaco Falls: We offer you peace and seclusion. The paths to our resort are only passable by asses. Therefore, you will certainly feel at home here.
  • In an Indonesian hotel: Someday Laundry Service.
  • Hotel notice in Istanbul, Turkey: Flying water in all room. You may bask in sin on patio.
  • Poster in Torremolinos, Spain: Tabu Discoteque with or without a date and in summer—plus open air banging-bar.
  • Notice in a Cairo hotel: On September 30, winter timing will start. As of 12:00 midnight all clocks will be forward one hour back.

With education standards around the world constantly rising, it is perhaps inevitable that Tinglish will one day become a dead language. But I hope that for at least a few more years adventurers will be instructed to “leave values at the front desk” and “not to have children in the bar.”