Ad Infinitum

This is a sign seen in one of the metro stations in Shanghai. I’ve never encountered something as literally translated as this one, and an outcome as absurd and hilarious! How on earth are the non-Chinese reading commuters supposed to decipher such instructions more cryptic than the Egyptian hieroglyphics?!

Can anybody guess what the one in English means?

Here’s the loose translation of the translation:

GIVE WAY TO ALIGHTING PASSENGERS. PLEASE OBSERVE ORDER.

The city has a team of grammar-police volunteers -mostly college students - who prowl the metropolis in random search of wrong English grammars found in billboards, restaurant menus and everything else that catches their eyes. These "police" then submit everything they’ve gathered to a certain government office that’s responsible for the "repair." But the problem is it takes quite a long time for the said government office to take action so the unsightly and mortifying translations continue to remain in display and draw the attention and confusion of the perplexed public.

But let’s admit it. These things also make good sources of comic relief and mind bogglers. Signs like "Beware of slippy" in a public washroom can make you forget about the real danger of slipping on the wet floor. Instead, you fear that a creature named slippy might be inhabiting one of the toilet bowls inside the cubicles. A warning along the subway tracks that says "Jumping off the platform is prohibited" makes you think hard what are not prohibited - -probably treading down or crossing to the other side while a train speeds near?

E.B. White said that English usage is sometimes more than mere taste, judgment and education — sometimes it’s sheer luck, like getting across the street.

Amen to that.

Cliches.They are like clothes worn to threadbare conditions, commercial ditties played ad nauseam, films not only with predictable endings but bad plots and actors, letters that begin with "first of all", giving toasters and tea sets as wedding gifts, the omnipresence of the words rant and rave in virtually all blogs (I’m beginning to suspect that it’s one of the cardinal rules of blogging that I wasn’t informed of!) , and the hobbyists who have badminton in their list of favorite activities ( this is until such time somebody announces that the next IN thing in the sports bandwagon is playing badminton without the rackets). 

I am on a self-imposed mission to avoid cliches at all costs because they make me sick. Cliches are the very reasons why I believe that imitation is not the best form of flattery and that familiarity breeds contempt. So I assure that you shall not see the words rant and rave (separate or together) in my blog or in any of my writings - missives included. That I have given toasters as wedding presents is a thing of the past that I rue to this day and have no desire of repeating. Instead, I shall start sending cochleas as wedding gifts which the wives (yes, I am partial to my own gender) can use on their husbands if they suddenly suffer from hearing-impairment during arguments, and most especially when there’s a ball game on tv. I also admit to having played badminton at least twice in my life but thankfully, those were the times when most of its followers were truly passionate about the sport, I not included.

But I am only human so on days when my defenses are low or when my sympathetic instincts are strong, I just might find myself sitting on a popcorn movie, even crying buckets of tears over it. There would also be those times when I just might be guilty of injecting "basically" in all of my sentences never mind if such practice is basically wrong and more often than not superfluous.

Now that is what you call irony. And irony is what I’d choose over cliche at any given time.