Horsing around
David Ting
Thursday, 21st May 2009 @ 17:13:04 PM
I love the English language, and I love it even more when it crashes into Mandarin to create a hybrid tongue-twister. You can call it Chinglish, or Mandringlish, or Chinenglish, or simply Gibberish. Whatever its name (it's just poor English actually), entertainment is its game, as shown by these real examples lifted from the catalogues I collected at the recent Auto Shanghai motor show...
From Dongfeng K07II brochure: "After 3 years gestated, the K07II now stirring published, refreshed multiple records again and gained the advantages both in your life and career..."
From Hafei Lu Zun brochure: "The styling and interior are melting the Europe graceful manner and East elegant honourable..."
From Dongfeng V07 brochure: "With bold figure and body shape give you a shocking visual effect, delicacy illustrates the preciseness..."
From Brilliance FRV brochure: "An excellent family car is put on the market with great surprise, FRV displays super fashion style with human-oriented spirit..."
WHAT TALKING YOU?!
I suspect that Chinglish is actually a top secret communication protocol used by China's superspies (led by agent 008 of course) operating in English-speaking countries. Singapore's secret service, however, can't use Singlish to communicate during operations, because the 'garment' insists on the use of good 'Engrish' everytime, everywhere.