18 May 2012

Fun with English

On the way to the elephant park we passed an upscale housing development; not quite a gated community. In big gold letters the development was proudly declared "Richy Rich Land".

On the back window of a car I saw "Be my princes, and I'll be your toad." (and, yes, princess was spelled with one 's') Maybe he was headed to the Princess Sexy Bra Shop, which we saw on the way back from cooking school.

The mahout on one of the elephants kept saying "Oh my God," "baby," and "so beautiful." Sometimes individually, sometimes all strung together. Then he would laugh

Another mahout, whenever one of the girls on his elephant said "Oh my God" would say "Oh my Buddha" so the kids have started saying 'OMB' instead of 'OMG' or 'oh my Buddha' instead of 'oh my God.'

A sign outside a wat: "Take of yourshoes please."

On the village day, we had 2 song teo drivers. One of them had on a shirt that said "Red Whole Heart." I was riding shotgun with the other driver who spoke a little English and I asked him what that meant. He said, "He is red shirt. Red shirt, red heart, all red." Which didn't really clarify things for me. Eventually, I understood that there were protests all over the country a few years ago, the Red Shirts protesting against the prime minister. The slogan 'Red Whole Heart' was declaring his support for the protesters and/or participation in the protests.

I saw a sign for condos, "3 Bedroom, 2 Parkings, 1 Massy Living Room."

At the organic tea shop where I bought tea, they had these little terra cotta type figurines of chubby, naked little boys. They were called Pee Pee Boys because if you soaked them in cold water then poured hot water over them, they would shoot a tiny stream from the appropriate location. The documentation included with them was helpfully titled, 'How to have fun with pee pee boy.'


In a restroom stall: "Do not put soiled in toilet." We discussed the meaning of this and we think it means 'Don't put used toilet paper in the toilet.'

On one of the koala signs at the zoo, a sign was talking about how the just-born joeys find their way to the pouch and attatch to "one of two treats.' That works... On another sign it was spelled "teets."

There was a coffee shop near one of the ruin sites called "Coffee Fresh & Antique."

On the way to Cha-am, there was a big shopping center that said "Amused Shopping Experience."

At a travel plaza where we stopped for a break, there was a Daddy Dough doughnut shop.

Near the beach, I saw a sign advertising live music by a group called "Calories Blah Blah." I know band names are often unique and a bit odd but 'blah blah' makes it sound like they didn't really try. And 'calories'??

License plates on cars consist of two letters (Thai) and four numbers (Western). With 40 consonants and 20 vowels, that's a lot of possible combinations. Lots of signs will have the same kind of mix...Thai letters with western numbers for prices or times. I asked Lora why they don't use Thai numbers. She didn't know.