The keyboard was no different from the hundreds of things I've ordered online. As with almost any product, I had a choice of the whether to go with an established brand or a cheaper imitation, and I had opted for the later. If you don't care about the label, those alternative names can save you some serious coin. True, the product may not last as long, taste the same or fit as well. But that's a tradeoff you may be willing to make to save the money. If you're talking socks or crackers or light bulbs, the difference may be negligible indeed. And as tech as gotten more dependable and commoditized, the less costly pretenders also frequently work just as well as the expensive stuff.
The one thing you may have to compromise on is the directions. For consumables, it's immaterial: I know how to eat Acme cookies as well as I do Oreos. But for stuff that requires setup, you may have to go with barebones guidance. The written step-by-step may be sketchy, and there may be no knowledgeable customer service agent accessible online or via phone. And if it comes from a Chinese offbrand, then all bets are off.
And an offbrand from China this was. No Microsoft or Apple or Cicso product, this was made by Jelly Comb. A maker of keyboards and computer peripherals, the company distributes its products through Walmart and Ebay and Amazon. They generally are well made and get good reviews, and their technology is pretty solid and works well. But their documentation? Chinglish at its finest.
Chinglish is the name given to those bizarre translations from Chinese to English. The examples are the stuff of legend: "Racist Park," "Dangerous, Be Careful Drowning" and "Dry Cream Only" are just some examples. Why are they so strange? There's no definitive reason, but it likely has to do with the fact that while English has just 26 characters, Chinese has hundreds. Some are sounds, some are ideas, some are entire words. Just as the Eskimos have 50 or more words for snow, there are multiple ways of saying the same thing in Chinese. And so a literal word-for-word translation of a Chinese sign that says "Under Construction" gets rendered in English as "Execution in Progress," while "Accessible Men's Room" comes across as "Deformed Man Toilet." Not wrong, per se, but not right either.
The authorities are well aware of these missteps. They understand that as they continue in their journey to be a global power that it makes a difference in the perception of Westerners. After all, how seriously can you take a country as a world power if their fire extinguishers have labels on them that say "Hand Grenade."
And so a number of official attempts have been made to try and right the ship, the most recent in a jointly issued directive from China's Standardization Administration and the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine. It was focused on improving 13 public arenas, including transportation, entertainment, medicine and financial services, and took effect last year.
However, it looks like the good folks at Jelly Comb didn't get the memo. How else to explain the directions on pairing my new Bluetooth keyboard to my phone? "Turn on the device, the blue light shining one time, then press Button of Connect with 3 seconds, the blue light Twinkle." I think I get the gist, in that when the blue power light is on I should press and hold the button for 3 seconds until the light flashes. And indeed, when I do that, the two connect, the light goes out, and all works as promised. Or as the directions put it, "After matching status sucdeed, the twinkle blue light off." Uh, that's what I said. I think.
Let me be very clear: as a person who has absolutely no ear for any languages beside my own, and is indeed still trying to figure out the intricacies of English, I have enormous admiration for anyone who can speak more than one. But it's hard not to be amused when the results are institutionally enshrined. And it does makes you wonder what was actually being said in the mother tongue when the photograph of the vegetarian specialty on the menu is described as "Sexual Harassment Dried Bamboo Shoots."
-END-
Marc Wollin of Bedford loves languages, even those he can't speak. His column appears regularly in The Record-Review, The Scarsdale Inquirer and online at http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.
The one thing you may have to compromise on is the directions. For consumables, it's immaterial: I know how to eat Acme cookies as well as I do Oreos. But for stuff that requires setup, you may have to go with barebones guidance. The written step-by-step may be sketchy, and there may be no knowledgeable customer service agent accessible online or via phone. And if it comes from a Chinese offbrand, then all bets are off.
And an offbrand from China this was. No Microsoft or Apple or Cicso product, this was made by Jelly Comb. A maker of keyboards and computer peripherals, the company distributes its products through Walmart and Ebay and Amazon. They generally are well made and get good reviews, and their technology is pretty solid and works well. But their documentation? Chinglish at its finest.
Chinglish is the name given to those bizarre translations from Chinese to English. The examples are the stuff of legend: "Racist Park," "Dangerous, Be Careful Drowning" and "Dry Cream Only" are just some examples. Why are they so strange? There's no definitive reason, but it likely has to do with the fact that while English has just 26 characters, Chinese has hundreds. Some are sounds, some are ideas, some are entire words. Just as the Eskimos have 50 or more words for snow, there are multiple ways of saying the same thing in Chinese. And so a literal word-for-word translation of a Chinese sign that says "Under Construction" gets rendered in English as "Execution in Progress," while "Accessible Men's Room" comes across as "Deformed Man Toilet." Not wrong, per se, but not right either.
The authorities are well aware of these missteps. They understand that as they continue in their journey to be a global power that it makes a difference in the perception of Westerners. After all, how seriously can you take a country as a world power if their fire extinguishers have labels on them that say "Hand Grenade."
And so a number of official attempts have been made to try and right the ship, the most recent in a jointly issued directive from China's Standardization Administration and the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine. It was focused on improving 13 public arenas, including transportation, entertainment, medicine and financial services, and took effect last year.
However, it looks like the good folks at Jelly Comb didn't get the memo. How else to explain the directions on pairing my new Bluetooth keyboard to my phone? "Turn on the device, the blue light shining one time, then press Button of Connect with 3 seconds, the blue light Twinkle." I think I get the gist, in that when the blue power light is on I should press and hold the button for 3 seconds until the light flashes. And indeed, when I do that, the two connect, the light goes out, and all works as promised. Or as the directions put it, "After matching status sucdeed, the twinkle blue light off." Uh, that's what I said. I think.
Let me be very clear: as a person who has absolutely no ear for any languages beside my own, and is indeed still trying to figure out the intricacies of English, I have enormous admiration for anyone who can speak more than one. But it's hard not to be amused when the results are institutionally enshrined. And it does makes you wonder what was actually being said in the mother tongue when the photograph of the vegetarian specialty on the menu is described as "Sexual Harassment Dried Bamboo Shoots."
-END-
Marc Wollin of Bedford loves languages, even those he can't speak. His column appears regularly in The Record-Review, The Scarsdale Inquirer and online at http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.
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