Proper name for this phenomenon?

[mungouk]

Is there a proper name for the phenomenon whereby Chinese clothing has an English slogan on it that's extremely scrambled?

 

For example (click/tap to enlarge):

 

 

This is actually from a list on Baopals that describes itself as "14 Chinglish Shirts That Will Hurt Your Brain" but to my mind this isn't really "Chinglish", which would be more like Chinese directly or very badly translated into English, rather than being scrambled by someone who doesn't speak it.

 

 

 

 

[889]

I⊥S  A  HELL  O  FRTN  FAL.

[murrayjames]

妮想得太多了八，这件T恤山恨好看纳，没有什癦问提

[mungouk]

10 minutes ago, murrayjames said:

癦

 

??!

 

[mungouk]

OK so Baidu reckons it's 

 

        mèng — a mole (on the skin)

 

...but it's not in MDBG.

 

 

[Jim]

At least it's not a tattoo.

[889]

Even Wenlin gives it just a blank entry, except to note it's Hanyu Da Zidian 4.2702.16.

 

EDIT: No hit on the PC Wenlin Dictionary, but the online ABC Cantonese-English Dictionary does give a hit:

 

癦 [mò] ? (Cantonese)

2 monosyllabic entries in The ABC Cantonese-English Dictionary (namespace Jyut):

►mak6/2 癦 N. M: 粒 nap1 〈a.w.a. ? mak6/2〉 ①【See also 大粒癦 daai6 nap1 mak6/2】 mole, nevus ②【See also 癦屎 mak6 si2】 freckle, i.e. ephelis, as on the face; pigmented spot on the skin ③birthmark
►mak6 癦 b.f./char. ►mak6 si2 癦屎

 

[Tomsima]

癦 is pretty common in cantonese for the meaning 'mole' if im not mistaken?

[Shelley]

Its more like badly copied/made up text speak. Or an attempt at - it desont metatr waht odrer the ltetesr are in as lnog as the frist and lsat letretr are in the croerct pacle.

 

I cndulo't bvleiee taht I culod aulaclty uesdtannrd waht I was rdnaieg. Unisg the icndeblire pweor of the hmuan mnid, aocdcrnig to rseecrah at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mttaer in waht oderr the lterets in a wrod are, the olny irpoamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rhgit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whoutit a pboerlm. Tihs is bucseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey ltteer by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Aaznmig, huh? Yaeh and I awlyas tghhuot slelinpg was ipmorantt! See if yuor fdreins can raed tihs too

 

Don't know if there is a name for this. Also its not easy to do:)

 

[DavyJonesLocker]

9 hours ago, mungouk said:

Is there a proper name for the phenomenon whereby Chinese clothing has an English slogan on it that's extremely scrambled?

 

"Modern fashion"

?

 

[ChTTay]

I like these. I sometimes bring my friends ridiculous t-shirts back if I spot any. 

 

Davy is probably the closest to coming up with a “name” for this.  I personally prefer the tees with just random stuff on them but not necessarily fake English. I saw an infograph from the CDC about heart disease on a t-shirt recently. I got my friend a t-shirt all about the Soviet Union with a picture of an astronaut on it. 

[DavyJonesLocker]

@ChTTay

What would I know. I am permanently stuck in the 80s. I listen to 80s music and have long wavy blonde hair. I look like an aging reject from whitesnake haha.

 

Mind you I see ripped stone washed jeans are making a come back and girls are wearing high wais shorts again. Damm I knew I should have kept those 501s!

 

[ChTTay]

Definitely just fashion. 

 

I’ll look out for someone of that description around Beijing. 

[abcdefg]

I had thought that these "Scrambled English" tee shirts would become less common over the years, but I'm not sure they have. 

[mungouk]

11 hours ago, Shelley said:

Don't know if there is a name for this.

 

I haven't found a name for it, but there's academic research on it which debunks the easy-to-read part for passages that are artificially easy when they include lots of very short words.

 

http://www.mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk/people/matt.davis/cmabridge/

 

 

[Shelley]

@mungouk I agree is not as straight forward as the general stuff going round the internet would have one believe. I think once again we have the whole context problem again. If the subject matter is one you are familiar with then there will be less or no unknown words, once it becomes a subject matter you have no skills in it will be more difficult.

I still think it is a very interesting phenomena. 

Thanks for the link.

[mungouk]

OK, here are a couple of hypotheses....

 

1. Some of it is lazy Shanzhai.

 

A lot of the similar stuff I see is pretending to be a particular brand. 

 

This was a recent favourite:

 

 

And this one looks like it was copied from the plastic bag the product came in:

 

 

 

2. Some of it is very quick OCR-ing of text that goes uncorrected.

 

I don't have pics but I've seen Gucci-wannabe clothing in the past week that has the logo in the right typeface but spells it GUOOI or GU001 or similar. Interesting that you get such similar letterforms that wouldn't come up through typing mistakes.

 

3. Some of it is typing mistakes that go unchecked (because why would you bother?)

 

(There must be a cultural studies thesis in here for someone, somewhere.)

 

Interestingly I think, the now huge brand Superdry, which emulates retro/classic styles using lots of Japanese text, was started by two English blokes in Cheltenham who were brazen about their use of google translate to come up with the meaningless and inaccurate Japanese text on their clothing range.  But to the people who buy their stuff, this doesn't seem important.  Possibly a similar thing in reverse. 

 

(See also: Frank Chickens.)

 

 

 

[mungouk]

12 hours ago, DavyJonesLocker said:

I look like an aging reject from whitesnake

 

Bearing that in mind for the next Beijing meet-up ?

[imron]

On 7/5/2019 at 1:25 PM, DavyJonesLocker said:

I am permanently stuck in the 80s

You'd enjoy the book "Ready Player One" by Ernest Cline.  Don't bother with the movie, but the book is great especially if you're in to 80's nostalgia.

[Lu]

Even funnier: it isn't always English. I have seen at least one shirt with mangled Dutch on it in a shop. No idea how it happens though. The same phenomenon exists the other way around. I used to own a lamp that said 空夫子, which to the best of my knowledge is meaningless gibberish. I've seen an otherwise nice t-shirt with the character 祭.

 

But at least all these examples were not tattoos.