Translated phrases or idioms have long been a source of amusement or embarrassment, for travelers. One example: a diner translating “I am full” literally from English to French is basically saying “I am pregnant.”
“Even countries with ostensibly the same language can have issues. For example, an English hotel owner might say to about a potential wakeup call “Would you like me to knock you up?” says Janet Hough in Consumer Travel.
Some of the best signs she has viewed were in China a few years back, although I have forgotten most of the deals, a favorite were the bins in Beijing, marked “Recycling” and “Unrecycling.”
“But this week I might have found a new high, or rather low, curiously enough on the website of the deluxe Royal Plaza Hotel in Singapore. Whatever translation software they are using, is not quite perfect This is an actual quote from the site about Carousel, their award-winning dinner buffet restaurant:
“Be mesmerized by the enormous spread of seafood and expect succulent and tender flesh.”
By David Wilkening
