THE MOST EPIC MISUSES OF ENGLISH
Despite the start of the Asean Economic Community by the end of this year, we don’t think Thailand is ready for it, English-wise. Need evidence? Check out these misuses of the language by respectable organisations. Day so rong so funnee.
Did someone say Chanel?
In October, we chuckled over a misspelling in an episode of the National Council for Peace and Order’s Thailand Moves Forward TV show. While the host interviewed ICT Minister Uttom Saonayon and Deputy Prime Minister Prajin Juntong, the large screen behind them showed a fancy graphic detailing, “Geovernment Centralize Content Management System” and “Geoverment Access Chanel”. Channel 7, which produced the show, later apologised, while Chanel must be thankful for the accidental shout-out.
Governmental rubdown
A funny blunder on Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha’s profile page on the Royal Thai Government’s website was spotted in January. Of the several links listed, “Massage of Congratulations” stood out — for all the wrong reasons. Nope, clicking it didn’t take you to videos of our Dear Leader receiving manly massages from the leaders of other countries. Instead, it took you to a page where you could — yes, you guessed it right — find messages from other world leaders, congratulating Prayut on becoming our PM. We think he can use a massage or two though, seeing how tense he seems to be.
A visit from aliens
In August, a screen capture of a page reading “Career aliens do not”, courtesy of the Department of Labour’s website went viral, because so many people became lost in translation. It was meant to list jobs that foreigners can’t hold under Thai law, but we assume a very drunk translator (or Google Translate) showed up at work, causing such oddities: “17. Work a gold or silver otter” (dress in silver or gold otter costumes to entertain kids?) and “37. The young, and some hand-twisting spiral” (huh?) and “13. Paper hand job” (ouch!). Fortunately, the gibberish has since been rectified. And “paper hand job” actually means “making mulberry paper by hand”. Phew.