Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Konglish is deliciously hilarious

I found some awesome Konglish when I was out shopping today.  For those of you who don't know, Konglish is the Korean version of the Japanese sensation of Engrish.  Both involve the use of English words in a foreign country in a way that is amusing to native English speakers.  (Some textbook examples are a Japanese t-shirt that says "I hate myself and I want to die" and a menu item called "mud crap pizza.")  In the case of t-shirts and such, Engrish and Konglish often aren't intended to actually be correct; they're just stylistic.  A similar practice would be Americans' fondness for getting tattoos of Chinese characters because they look cool.  You get the idea.


Anyway, I found some juicy incidents of Konglish today, which filled me with glee.  The first is a napkin; it bears the name of the restaurant where I ate (a delicious) dinner.  Margaret, I dedicate this photo to you.
So close!  The restaurant paid enough attention to detail to put an umlaut over the "u" in Hansel, as it should be in correct German...but they whiffed it on the "s."  Apparently, Gretel's friend is not a strapping young German kid, but a Baroque composer.  Who knew?  :c)

I saw this sign at COEX, a giant (and awesome) shopping complex thingy.  I didn't know until now that trade hatches from eggs!   :c)

Hehehe....not explanation needed!  Except to say that there's a giant question mark on the back of the shirt as well.  You know, just in case the shirt wasn't amusing enough on the front.

Okay okay okay: WHOADANG, right?  I'm sorry the picture's not very good, but I was in a store and didn't want to arouse suspicion, so I had to take it quickly.  The shirt says WHAT THE FUCK ARE THE RNSLANG ALTRNTV ANY WAY?  I would also like to know the answer.  (Let me know if you find out.)

And finally, the piece de resistance--of which I am now the lucky owner: a fantastic t-shirt I bought for 9,900 won.


aaaaaand let's go in for the close-up!

"Alterhate reality" sounds like a fabulous name for a death metal band, don't you think?  And the rest of it....well.  It just doesn't make any sense.  WHICH IS FABULOUS.  It's modeled after the front page of a newspaper, but the "articles" are all "talky talky, newspaper words, blah blah blah."  They're clearly taken from actual news articles, but there are words capriciously added and subtracted, ensuring that the t-shirt makes no sense at all.

It is glorious.  I cannot wait to wear it.

2 comments:

Lori said...

Dude....I just reread this entry, and it's riddled with typoes. Riddled! So now you can't make fun of me for it, because I pointed it out first. SO THERE.

Unknown said...

oh man. LOL for realz. thanks for the dedication. I treasure foreva.