Saturday, August 21, 2010

Typos on Signs

I've never really been a collector of anything but since living in Palembang, I've started taking photos of all the odd signs I come across. I even had all the Indonesian ones printed and put in a photo album just so I can look back and remember the good times we had there.

Anyway, here are three that I came across in Malaysia.

This is a very common mispronunciation in Malaysia. Many people have problems differentiating between the 'L' and the 'R' sounds and the two are often swapped around. Sometimes a "Lorry" is called a "Lolly" and here, you can see that the "Towel" has become a "Tower".



I always wonder if it was the printers who made the typos or the customer ordering the printing that wrote things down incorrectly. So, I guess these people only lend money out on Mondeys.



This one is my favorite from the trip. The top line is in Malay and is correct. I can't read the Chinese but I'm guessing that its correct too. The English line is almost a word-to-word translation of the Malay line. To know exactly where these people are moving to, you'd need to read all three lines since the number is on the Chinese line but the road name is on the English line.



I need to keep my eyes open for some Australian signs to collect...

4 comments:

Jean-Luc Picard said...

How odd that these translations come out like that!

Mike said...

On the last one it says they are 'removing'. So I guess they moved there once before and now they're moving back again.

Bilbo said...

I love signs with typos. My current favorite is a warning sign that is all over the construction areas in the Pentagon: it says, "Caution - Powder tools in use!" I guess you need those for drilling through talcum...

Amanda said...

Jean-Luc : Yes. It happens all the time and usually gives everyone a good laugh. Sometimes, my husband speaks that way too because his first language is Mandarin.

Mike : Ah Yes! I forgot to mention that in my post. It was what caught my eye in the first place.

Bilbo : Thats a funny one...POWder tools. Ha! HA!