Just the other day I was watching a DVD from Hong Kong. The movie was of the typical Hollywood, English language variety. And it had subtitles. English ones… well, sort of. The words were English, but when strung together they made absolutely no sense. Occasionally you could pick out where the subtitles came together with the actual dialogue, but it took some effort. I couldn’t figure out why the movie didn’t have either Chinese subtitles or the original English ones.

So after reading the nonsensical bits of poetry for a few minutes, I think I figured it out. My hunch is that the movie originally had Chinese subtitles and someone translated these into English, literally. An example – an actor says “Warmongering?!” and the subtitle, believe it or not, reads, “You are warm hungry.” Turns out this already has a name – Engrish, which is basically a bad translation of another language (usually Japanese or Chinese) into English and, sometimes, a bad translation of English into another language followed by a (better) translation back into English.  

I’ve even experienced this while watching English programs on Danish television – and those two languages have a lot more in common than English and Chinese! For example, I once read a subtitle that claimed a woman had just broken her window – when she’d just “cracked” it open. Which also begs the questions – do the people who write the subtitles even watch the video or do they just read the transcript? Isn’t context vital in understanding dialogue? And – how much really does get lost in translation? 

Here are a few classic translation errors that’ll make you second guess the words at the bottom of your screen, or in your hotel lobby:

“Bite the wax tadpole.” – the original translation of Coca-Cola into Chinese.
“Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the grave.” – the “Pepsi Comes Alive” slogan translated into Chinese

“You are invited to take advantage of the chambermaid.” – a Japanese hotel’s guest directory from 1991 

“It takes a virile man to make a chicken pregnant.” – a mistranslated Perdue chicken ad

Something’s been eating away at my language nerves lately, and I thought it was time to create an exclusive forum to discuss it.

Notice anything strange about the above sentence? Well, it doesn’t really make sense. The nature of a blog is to include everyone – so the last thing it should be is an “exclusive forum”. And frankly, there are lots of other things that shouldn’t be “exclusive” but have somehow become just that.

I’ve recently overheard or read the following:

“Our new, exclusive range of comfortable shoes…” (about a very popular shoe brand)
“I love that this bottle has such an exclusive design!” (about a bottle that 50% of Danish offices have in their fridges)
“We make exclusive Thai cuisine” (but anyone can walk in and buy some)

Come on! Anyone can afford your stuff – you’re not Gucci, you’re not excluding anyone at all and saying you are makes your marketing look phony! I want to know exactly what they mean with “exclusive” – and I want them to explain it with words I can understand.

My hunch is that the trouble lies in the translation from the Danish “eksklusiv” to the English “exclusive”. And it’s not about the exact dictionary meaning. It’s more about the way the usage of a word can evolve quite differently in two different cultures. It seems that in Denmark, exclusive is more positive, whereas in the US, it’s often kind of…undemocratic.

It’s not that it’s wrong in all cases. Because as you’ll notice in the list of the top 7 definitions from Dictionary.com, exclusive can in fact mean fashionable, stylish, and high-end.

But exclusivity is tricky: while some of the definitions are positive, others are quite mean, really. An exclusive group is usually not welcoming to newcomers. Whereas an exclusive offer is something we all get excited about because it makes us feel special.

So my point is this. It’s not that you can’t ever use “exclusive” to describe a good thing. It’s just that you have to use it sparingly and correctly. Because once all services and products become exclusive, none of them are.

This post was written by Anastasya, but posted under Dan’s name for technical reasons. Just so you know.

We had an interesting question from one of our clients the other day:

“Could you give me your expert opinion on the word ‘learning’. At our company, people love to speak of one learning, two learnings, key learnings etc.

I hate it and maintain that the word does not exist in a countable version and that we should use ‘lessons learnt’. Am I outdated or correct?”

You’ll be pleased to know that we advised our client not to overuse the word ‘learning’, and certainly not to use it in plural form. But what do you think? Do you use the word ‘learning’?