How to avoid arrest and talk great Inglish.

China kindly publishes English language newspapers to help us idiots to understand what's happening. Occassionally they get the English rite. Not oftun.

China Daily usually gets the Englis vaguely write, but is so dull that dead men die again. There is nothing there I want to read. If you want a list of the drunks who are in charge of district 356, village 88 or you really can't live without the precise details of the 87th Five Year Plan to Improve Tractor Maintenance then that should be your paper of choice.

Until 20 minutes ago, I would have said that the best English language paper is probably the Shanghai Daily. They seems to strike a healthy balance between serious reporting and pop journalism. In reasonable Inglish.

But this story left me wondering.

As if the story wasn't bizarre enough anyway, I find this line: "As the man refused to talk to police, they couldn't arrest him"

What alternative universe does the writer occupy? I can't begin to number the possibilities that would open up if it were true.

I'm off to the department store to steal a new computer. If anyone complains, I'll just refuse to speak to the cops. They can't arrest me.

So, let me tell you dear journalist. The police can arrest anybody they like. Or don't like. And if you are arrested you must be guilty, as one Chinese aquaintance explained to me. "If you weren't guilty, why would you be arrested" ran the logic.

(To be fair, the Shanghai reporter is only reporting what the local paper said.)

Talking of great English, I don't tend to get involved in mocking the errors of Chinese people attempting to use English. I make a hash of their language on an hourly basis, so I can't really complain about them. But this amused me.

If you really need to translate:

just stick the Chinese into a computer translation program, write down the English it supplies and stick it on your shop sign.

(It just means "restaurant".)

tags: china  newspapers  chinglish  shanghai  police  arrest  translation  

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