'I' On Malaysia

Having regained interest in the newly revived re-worked Knight Rider, I was amused to find that the most highly advanced AI ever written can’t spell…

In the previous week’s episode (Knight To King’s Pawn), KITT had all of his memories stolen to be placed in to KARR.  KITT uploaded himself to the Internet in a desperate bid to save himself but in the end proclaimed that there was still something missing.

It seems that having difficulty with translations of text has more casualties than going to English from another language.  It seems reasonable to expect the reverse to be true as well but since we see English as being a default language, we forget that countries where English isn’t the native tongue have to do the reverse and translate English to their language as well; sometimes with strange results like this sign in Wales shows.

For the uninitiated, Doctor Who is a British sci-fi TV series about a space & time travelling, all-knowing, do-gooder who travels through time and space in a ship that looks like an old English Police call box.

What has this got to do with the Malaysian Police I hear you ask?  Well, during the last public holidays (Hari Raya), the Police issued some announcements to try and warn people from driving dangerously during the peak travelling periods.  One of the things they wanted to teach people is highlighted in the following newspaper clipping:

In honor of the famous Engrish web site I thought I’d start my own little Engrish section on my blog too – especially given how many instances I see that would fit in to the Engrish website quite happily.

Starting with this great example seen recently on one of the Hong Kong TV dramas that Wendy watches with more religion than she does Desperate Housewives or even Sex and The City… 

Death Investigation Extension (D.I.E.)

Maybe Police investigations aren’t all that scientific in Hong Kong?