The Japanese love to wear clothes with English on them because it supposedly looks cool, yet they often can’t understand what these slogans say. This week I had one student with the expression “No Time to Kill” emblazoned on her shirt, which although perfectly acceptable English, I doubt this housewife is busy enough to warrant wearing such a shirt!
Clothing manufacturers take advantage of this ‘English is fashionable’ attitude and produce shirt after shirt with random English words that make no sense. How about this one:
Now where I come from, the word ’spunk’ refers to number three in this list from the American Heritage Dictionary:
spunk (spﾅｭngk) n.
- Informal Spirit; pluck.
- Punk, touchwood, or other tinder.
- Vulgar Slang Ejaculated semen.
If you can remember any ‘Funny English’ shirts, leave a comment below or send an email (with a picture if you have one) to ‘nick at the title of this blog’.
If you liked this post, please submit it to
JapanSoc,
StumbleUpon, or
Digg, and if you haven't already,
please subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks!
Yes, I have seen it many a time in Japan! One of my friend’s told me he saw a girl walking around in Japan with a shirt that read “Blow Job Queen”
I dont know why they like it so much but I guess Western equivalent are white people walking around with Kanji tattoos that say the dumbest things.. One of my friend’s friends has the kanji word for “witch” tattooed on his shoulder… I dont think he knew the true meaning until it was already tattooed on him..
Wonder if you can get a Kanju tattoo that says “spunk”?
This is wrong in so many ways!