HumourOT: Countertop materials marketing 101

[Robatoy]

Cut & Paste from my mailbox...as is: (*I* thought it was funny...

Private Showroom Our quartz stone is the best material for building and interior decoration! It contains 93% quartz, 7% resin. Hard enough to avoid any scratches; Not damaged by the hot; Not hurt by the acid or alkali; Not get dirty; Not get broken; Natural color without variation; No poison and not over level radialization; Not damaged by the water and fire; Size of slabs: 305*140 cm; Thickness: 1.5cm,2cm,3cm; Finishing: Polished,Honed,Antique; Capacity of production: monthly 50,000m2. High quality,reasonable price. If interested, please contact us soon. Please click the URL below to view the showroom:

Service Team [e-mail]

[Morris Dovey]

Heh - Lixin Marble & Granite is at 83 Xianliezhong Road. You probably didn't notice that at 102 Xianliezhong Road is Topwork International Co Ltd.

It's a small world. :)

[Lee Michaels]

"Robatoy" wrote

Damn, a private showroom invite!!

How much of this stuff are you going to buy??

[Joe]

Are they flying you there? When's the contract signing?

Thanks for sharing, that was worth the read.

jc

[Chris Friesen]

I particularly appreciated the fact that it was "not over level radialization". I worry about that.

I have to say though, that the most revolutionary thing about this material is that it "Not get dirty". This is fantastic--I'd never have to clean the counters again!

Chris

[David Nebenzahl]

On 10/22/2009 6:39 AM Robatoy spake thus:

Just think what an even greater threat the Chinese would be if they ever mastered our language and didn't use such ridiculous-sounding Chinglish in their promo materials ...

[Doug Miller]

Translations should always be done by a native speaker of the target language, not the original language. I imagine that when English speakers attempt to translate English to Chinese, the result sounds just as silly to the Chinese as the "Chinglish" does to us.

[David Nebenzahl]

On 10/22/2009 1:21 PM Doug Miller spake thus:

Absolutely. I'm sure my pathetic attempts at translation would be hilarious to Mandarin speakers if I were to write stuff for the Chinese market. (Well, assuming I knew *any* Mandarin to begin with ...)

[Doug Miller]

SWMBO and I both speak German (hers is much better than mine). We've come across a few amusing translations of German to English, obviously performed by native speakers of German. One example: a section in the operating instructions for a power tool, labelled "Security Advices". WTF?? OK, let's go look at the German version... oh!! Safety Precautions. I've done a few translations of technical documents from German to English... but I don't even begin to imagine that I'm competent to go the other direction. I'm sure I'd provide considerable unintended hilarity to my readers.

[Lew Hodgett]

----------------------------------------------------- Have a couple of interesting tales RE: German

First I've been involved with German instrumentation since the mid

80's.

Their documentation has gone thru a greater evolution than their products.

It's been a struggle, but it has been worth it.

Second, my grand parents emigrated to Indiana in the 1865-1875 time frame, my grandfather from Prussia, my grandmother from Hesslot, both spoke "High German", which today is a dead language.

My mother had a letter from my grandmother to my grandfather written around 1920 which she could not translate.

For more than 70 years, Mom had no idea of the contents of the letter.

To make a long story short, during the 1990's, I found a woman whose mother still lived in Germany and took summer vacations here in SoCal.

The mother still read and spoke "High German" and was able to translate the letter.

Talk about a piece of luck.

Understand my grandmother died several years before I was born.

As I read the translation for the first time, I thought it was a letter from Mom.

It was a little surreal reading that translation.

Now I know where many of the descriptive phrases and idioms my mother used came from.

That letter served to introduce to my grandmother in a sort of around the corner way.

I'd rather be lucky than good any day.

Lew