hilarious

All posts tagged hilarious

There are funny signs all over the world. I’ve collected a good number of them over time. The warning sign for Slow Turkeys Crossing (I wonder if there are also Fast Turkeys crossing the street anywhere, but I’ll not get that discussion going) was only one of them. In any case… The Grand Lake area in any case also has Slow Children. That’s documented:

Warning sign for slow children

D800, ISO400, 1/1000 sec @ f/5.6, Nikkor 50mm

And Colorado Springs has the following combination, which I found rather funny (not the deaf and blind children of course, although the sign is somewhat… well… in your face, but the combination of the two):

Warning sign for deaf and blind children

D800, ISO100, 1/500 sec @ f/8, Nikkor 50mm

Equally funny is the combination of signs in the following picture:

Deer crossing

D800, ISO100, 1/500 sec @ f/5.6, Nikkor 50mm

And there were still a good number of more signs, funny or not, that I didn’t have in my collection.
But the one that stole the prize… Really… I mean… REALLY!!! The one that stole the prize was this one:

Sign warning for Bigfoot crossing the street

D800, ISO100, 1/250 sec @ f/8, Nikkor 50mm

I get it… In a country like the United States of America you have to make sure you’re covered against any possible law suit by people who are trying to squeeze money out of the most impossible things. But seriously.
I do believe the possibility of a creature like “Bigfoot” existing. As I do believe that there’s something swimming around in Lochness. Smoke… fire… too many sightings of the things to be just a fable.
But you’re just making a total fool out of yourself by putting that text under the sign. There’s no explaining text under any wildlife sign. I’ve seen horse signs, deer signs, bighorn signs, moose signs, deaf and blind children signs, slow children signs, slow turkey signs… In other countries I’ve seen duck signs, owl signs, beaver signs, otter signs… No explanation needed. And then this…
Owwell… It gave us a good laugh (and some hilarious pictures after that 😀 ).

Bigfoot

D800, ISO100, 1/250 sec @ f/11, Nikkor 50mm

We’re back from our holidays in the Canary Islands. It was awesome, in many ways.
The coming month (probably 😉 ) you’ll be reading all about it.

We’re starting here (for the small text you’ll have to check the big size of the image):

The Babelfish screw-up

The Babelfish screw-up

(the copyright of this -horrid, I’m sorry- design lies with the one who made it, and it wasn’t me)
So as a design/marketing guy I always assumed that when you promote your company or activities, you make sure that everything is perfect. If you need multiple languages, you have the original text professionally translated, or at least have it double-checked by someone who knows a few words in both or all languages you have the text translated into.
Clearly this wasn’t the case when they made this little flyer and it made me laugh out loud when I read it.

This is a buggy:

Image courtesy http://www.imcaonline.es

Image courtesy http://www.imcaonline.es

And buggy in Spanish is buggy in English (that’s easy!). But if you do your homework right, buggy in English is not only this sporty extreme little vehicle, but it’s also these sporty little vehicles below (pram, stroller, coming in a variety of versions, with 3 wheels, 4 wheels, sun hood, etc. etc.):

Image courtesy of http://www.babyuniverse.com.au

Image courtesy of http://www.babyuniverse.com.au

So when you translate buggy from Spanish to English to German, it might just turn out as “Kinderwagen”, which means pram, stroller.
And here this company is sporting a colorful flyer promoting with a big German header “Excursions guided in prams”. Not only are there some really weird translations in the headers, but if you check the small text, they claim to have “Routes long and half”. The excursion includes “assurance” (assurance for what, really? Is it THAT unsafe?) and there’s something weird with 7-year-old major children.

And the above example was only one of many, many translation comedies I found.
Saving money is good, but save it from the correct places, I say.

I don’t typically fancy an assured excursion guided in prams with 7-year-old major children…