Spotted outside a female toilet at Buona Vista. This picture was taken by a friend of mine. Let's not get too excited here, shall we? =)

Well, because if you take a look at the background of the picture, it's actually a renovation/construction site that was situated VERY near the female toilet. In this context, they could have been erecting (constructing) structures at the worksite. Most people however, relate erection to a certain bodily function, thus making this sign seem almost obscene. To prevent misunderstanding, perhaps a more suitable choice of words would be "CONSTRUCTION IN PROGRESS".

-Daniel =)

Who's not for sale?

The omission of the phrase "property of" in front of the person's name, in this case, "A.Hassan", has the unintended meaning that "A.Hassan" is "not for sale". An example of an ellipsis. Missing constituents of a sentence can make a big difference.

The ultimate video to watch

Flied Lice,Beef Flied Lice,Chicken Kali, floot juice and c**k!! Well all that you can think of in a menu.=)Watch and enjoy this one just make sure you're above 18 and you have your headphones on.

-benin

Lawn Police! :)

I found this image online and I think it's pretty hilarious, especially because of the "against lawn" part. I don't think there's such a thing as the Lawn Police, now is there? :)

I would think they're trying to say, "Please do not dump your trash or pet droppings onto our lawn. This is against the law. If you still do not wish to comply, we will report you to the authorities with evidence!"

-Jasvin

Konglish/ 한국어식 영어(韓國語式 英語)

정통 바베규 as seen here means "legitimate barbecue" Have you heard of "illegitimate barbecue?" How do you define a "legitimate barbecue"? Is Seoul Garden legitimate? Are those steam boat cum barbecue restaurants at Bugis legitimate?

To those like me who understands Korean, you might probably understand what it means.

"정통(正統)" is the Sino-Korean word for "traditional" and "바베큐" is the literal translation of the word "barbecue"

What the owner was actually trying to say is that his shop is selling traditional barbecue.















This sign reads "편의시설 이용안내, Convenience Institution Information." What exactly is "Convenience Institution Information"

To know what it means, like as take a look at whatis means in Korean. All the 8 characters here are of Sino-Korean origins.

편의시설=편의 + 시설
편의(便宜) means "convenience"
시설(施設) means "facilities"

이용안내=이용 + 안내
이용(利用) means "to make use of"
안내(案內) means information.

What the sign is actually trying to say is "(there are) information (available here) regarding the use of covenience facilities"














Physically Challeneged Only?! Most of us can most probably guess that this is a place to the disabled. But the question in our mind is, "What are the disabled going to do here?" Eat? Talk? Make merry?

Let me break down the words in Korean to understand what this sign means. All words are of Sino-Korean origins.

장애인(障礙人)= The disabled
주차(駐車)= Parking cars
구역(區域)= Area/ place

What the sign means is that that the area ahead is designated to be used by the disabled to park their cars


Special thanks given to Wikipedia and Flickr.
1st picture was taken from Wikipedia and 2nd/3rd pictures were taken from Flickr.
Explanations and translations given by Toh Zheng Han

Hmmm. A Unique or An Unique?

Something we'd like to note whilst teaching the use of 'a' and 'an':

We commonly see the use of these determiners as being confined by a vowel rule. However we should note that the vowel rule applies to vowel sounds that begin a word and not vowel alphabets.

Thus it should be a unique in this case as unique begins with the /j/ consonant sound.

Similarly with an heiress or an hour, where the h is silent and the nouns begin with vowel sounds.

Hope this was useful(:

Regards,
NASeera(:

Where's the L ??

Recently went for dinner at Jurong Point. Was looking through the mall directory when this caught my eye:


I wonder, what exactly is 'Hala'??

Cheers,
Ajay.

Hmmm..

The picture says:

"Please dispose your litters into the rubbish bin".

Shouldn't we use:

• "dispose of" here instead of just "dispose'
• "litter" instead of "litters"?

I took this picture when i was at the lobby of a particular condominium at orchard road. :)

Cheers,

Charmaine Goh

Food for thought....literally.

Here are two pictures that my friend and I took when we were at the Palette @ NTU and on the MRT.


This was taken at the Palette @ NTU near the front counter. Depending on how you take the phrase, it could mean that the corn was fed to tenderness (Poor cows), or the Cows were fed corn till they were tender (which still does sound wrong, so a better paraphrase would be the cows were fed corn thus they were tender.) This is due to the fact that the words corn and fed can be taken together to mean an adjective to describe the elliped noun of cow, or they can be taken separately as corn (a noun) and fed (a verb) to mean the former meaning.


A similar example can be seen here in the second picture. Depending on if we take the word horny to be an adjective or part of the head noun in the noun phrase in the picture, would it then be describing the Goat Weed as Horny (which would be rather amusing since...an asexual object usually would not be described that way) or as a type of Goat Weed instead? :)

<3,
Goh S. Silk

This is a cartoon from Reader’s Digest.

The cartoon shows the danger of separating two words that actually, together, make up the head noun. If you insist on separating the words to make “tank” the noun premodifier of “tops”, that is what you will get.
P.S. Recall the “king kong” question (similarly, “king kong” cannot be separated)

Michelle Yeong

http://www.yowazzup.com/blog/images/funny-signs-china/funny-signs-china-06.jpg

This is in an attempt to warn people to be careful because the floor is slippery. However, after a loose and direct translation, it became "slip carefully", it which is to not warn but rather, tell "If you want to slip (and fall), do it with care".

Cheryl Hong Siong Ling

straightly

This was taken some time back by my friend.
Obviously, it was supposed to be "Strictly for customers only".
No idea how they could mix that up with "straightly".
By the way, do you guys have any idea if it should be "With minimum spend of $xx, stand to win a chance ..." or "With minimum spending of $xx, stand to win a chance ..."
I've seen this many times at restaurants, but didn't have a chance to take a photo. :)

- Safrina

Direct translation

Instead of writng 'Do Not Leave Litter',replace it with 'Do Not Litter'. I believe 'Do not Leave Litter' is a direct translation from the Chinese Language.

This 'Pola Snack' photo is taken by me after my quick snack in my hostel room.

Wan Ting (wei Ting) ;)

sentence ambiguity

Ambiguity! The monsters ate everyone (humans that were present), or everyone (every monster) had eaten?

Taken from: 99.5 Spooky Jokes, Riddles, & Nonsense, by Holly Kowitt

`Chow Shi Qin

Perhaps it should have been- "Application forms will be given out between 3- 5pm, from this Friday to next Wednesday."



Rephrased:

Could you please do your laundry during the day and not at night? The noise made by the washing machine disturbs me. Thank you.



Pictures take from: http://farm1.static.flickr.com/186/408759609_77270a792f.jpg?v=0

Charmain Loy

Direct translation does not work.

Picture from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/telegraph/multimedia/archive/01407/sign14_1407795i.jpg.

Only Mr. "Knock Head" needs to look out?

- Effie