Talk Dirty To Me

Despite the title, this blog was originally entitled ‘Bad English – Not a Musical Tribute’ back when I first wrote it in 1990. I just wanted to keep the rock and roll song for a title thing going
'I Feel Coke’ (back in Blog #2, I said I’d get back to this) and ‘Speak Lark’ are (as of 1990) two of Japan’s largest and most successful faux pas’ in the nations’ advertising world in both television and magazine. The first is a work of art by Japan’s Coca-Cola company (Click HERE for examples, and the second is for a popular brand of cigarettes that is hawked by many different hunky English-speaking male actors—like Timothy Dalton (Click HERE) of James Bond fame. The name’s Lark. Speak Lark. What the heck does it mean? As for ‘I Feel Coke’, sometimes I feel coke when I get a cramp from drinking my daily two litres of the stuff, but is that what they mean? I love Coke, though I’ve since been forced to switch to a sugarless version (Coke Zero), and have since cut back to one litre a day—still, it’s a crying shame that that particular slogan is allowed to fester like my impending stomach ulcer and diabetes.
Despite the nonsensical English used in these two slogans, it doesn’t seem to have affected product sales. In fact, judging it by its longevity (twenty – plus years and counting), I’d bet sales are (cough-cough-hack) excellent. I suspect it might be due to the fact that the average Japanese person doesn’t realize that the English phrases used are gibberish. That in itself isn’t terrible—I’m sure there are plenty of examples in American advertising, too—heck, just the name of Tim Hortons coffee shop makes me cringe... it was the brainchild of one Tim Horton (singular) a fantastic defensemen with the Leafs and Sabres of the National Hockey League, but the lack of an apostrophe for the possessive... aaarrgghh. Unless it’s okay, and then I’ll stand corrected.
Anyhow, what irks me are the many bizarre number of incoherent interpretations of the English vernacular that appear on the clothing or belongings of the Nihonjin (Japanese). Clothing is perhaps one of the greatest expressions of a person’s character. While it’s true that you can’t judge a book by its cover, most people do develop an initial feeling about others based solely on appearance. It’s why it irks me that the Japanese, in their lust to be more American, will purchase any item that contains what they perceive to be American-English on it.
By the way, I have nothing against America, I would just rather have my Japanese still maintain a bit of Japanese in them.
While aboard a train heading Buddha only knows, I saw a cool-looking guy with really long hair that partially obscured some writing on the back of his leather jacket. He was kind of a tough-looking guy, and I wondered if perhaps he belonged to a local motorcycle gang. After he flicked his pony-tail out of the way,  I began to read the back of coat: “We are good potato kids who like to play fun and games.”
Oh my! It’s one of the terrible Vichyssoise biker members who I think are affiliated with the Paris-based French Fries Motorcycle Club! The friend he was talking to had an embroidered long-stemmed black rose with large thorns on the back of his jacket. It read: “I am pretty flower.” I suppose that’s when they both turned around to stare at me, as I was laughing so hard I peed my pants.
Another evening, I had a very sexy Japanese girl over to my apartment for some of my famous chilli con carne (Hey, I had a fight with my girlfriend again, and it was over... again). While we snuggled under my kotatsu (the heater made out of a table that kept you warm when you sat under it), she asked me if I could tell her what the English words on her shirt meant. I stared long and hard, and then I looked at the words. I read them out loud to her. I tried to explain (gently) that the words on her shirt were not English, but Italian. She was mortified. I spent the rest of the evening consoling her. Twice.
Other instances I’ve observed have people wearing elaborate messages of goodwill that end up short of its intended mark because of faulty spelling or grammar:  “...and only in the rear shall the meek inherit the Earth.” Rear? The END maybe. Then again, maybe it’s correct afterall.
The most disgustingly annoying example of bad English occurs when the shirt makers attempt to incorporate what can only be automatic writing. This happens when the author writes everything that he/she happens to think of (much like myself, but with even less regard for sense).
An example of the automatic writing complete with CAPS and strangely placed sentence structure: “Pit Stop Crew; Since 1878; Campbell soup kid; Champion 1912-1914; We like good food and drink; Happy peace; gun shop is best; Think Pink.” This was all written on one jacket! You can’t make up stuff like this! Well, I probably could – but in this case, I didn’t have too. Perhaps the strangest part of this particular jacket is that there wasn’t any pink on it.
The worst example of poor taste I saw was a particular bomber jacket. This one looked just like what the U.S. pilots used to wear back in WWII. On the front, on the top left corner was the name of the airplane the bomber jacket purported to belong to: the Enola Gay. Not sure what that one is? Click HERE for some history. Think Hiroshima. All I can think is that some idiot clothes designer thought that would be a good joke to play on the Japanese.
So, what’s worse? Is it the clothing manufacturer’s disregard for proper English and good taste, or the consumer for not knowing English or their history?
Maybe what Japan needs is someone who can speak and write English well, as well as someone who cared, to proofread all of the copy transferred onto clothing for sale in the country.
I suppose if I bought a dictionary, I could do that job.
For some examples of what I'm writing about, check out this site HERE or simply google "Japlish".
Somewhere dry cleaning my pants,
Andrew Joseph