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Lee DeRaud
05-11-2006, 8:15 PM
Signs Written in English Discovered Around the World:

On a French passenger jet:
Live West Under Your Seat.

In a Tokyo hotel:
Is forbidden to steal hotel towels please. If you are not a person to do such thing is please not to read notis.

In a Bucharest hotel lobby:
The lift is being fixed for the next day. During that time we regret that you will be unbearable.

In a Leipzig elevator:
Do not enter the lift backwards, and only when lit up.

In a Belgrade hotel elevator:
Please leave your values at the front desk.

In a hotel in Athens:
Visitors are expected to complain at the office between the hours of 9 and 11 a.m. daily.

In a Yugoslav hotel:
The flattening of underwear with pleasure is the job of the chambermaid.

In a Japanese hotel:
You are invited to take advantage of the chambermaid.

In the lobby of a Moscow hotel across from a Russian Monastery:
You are welcome to visit the cemetery where famous Russian and Soviet composers, artists, and writers are buried daily except Thursday.

In an Austrian hotel catering to skiers:
Not to perambulate the corridors in the hours of repose in the boots of ascension.

In a Swiss mountain inn:
Special today: no ice cream.

On the menu of a Swiss restaurant:
Our wines leave you nothing to hope for.

On the menu of a Polish hotel:
Salad a firm's own make; limpid red beet soup with cheesy dumplings in the form of a finger; roasted duck let loose; beef rashers beaten up in the country people's fashion.

Alongside a Hong Kong tailor shop:
Ladies may have a fit upstairs.

Two signs from a Mallorcan shop entrance:
English well talking. Here speeching American.

At a Bangkok dry cleaners:
Drop your trousers here for best results.

Outside a Paris dress shop:
Dresses for street walking.

At a Rhodes tailor shop:
Order your summer suit. Because is big rush we will execute customers in strict rotation.

Similarly, from the Soviet Weekly:
There will be a Moscow exhibition of arts by 15,000 Soviet Republic painters and sculptors. These were executed over the past two years.

A sign posted in Germany's Black Forest:
It is strictly forbidden on our Black Forest camping site that people of different sex, for instance, men and women, live together in one tent unless they are married with each other for that purpose.

In a Zurich hotel:
Because of the impropriety of entertaining guests of the opposite sex in the bedroom, it is suggested that the lobby be used for this purpose.

In an advertisement by a Hong Kong dentist:
Teeth extracted by the latest Methodists.

In a Rome laundry:
Ladies, leave your clothes here and spend the afternoon having a good time.

In a Norwegian cocktail lounge:
Ladies are requested not to have children in the bar.

At a Budapest zoo:
Please do not feed the animals. If you have any suitable foods, give it to the guard on duty.

At the office of a Rome doctor:
Specialist in women and other diseases.

At an Acapulco hotel:
The manager has personally passed all the water served here.

At a Tokyo shop:
Our nylons cost more than common, but you'll find they are best in the long run.

A Japanese information booklet about using a hotel air conditioner:
Cooles and Heates: If you want just condition of warm in your room, please control yourself.

From a brochure of a car rental firm in Tokyo:
When passenger of foot heave in sight, tootle the horn. Trumpet him melodiously at first, but if he still obstacles your passage, then tootle him with vigor.

In a Bangkok temple:
It is forbidden to enter a woman even a foreigner if dressed as a man.

In a Tokyo bar:
Special cocktails for the ladies with nuts.

In a Copenhagen airline ticket office:
We take your bags and send them in all directions.

On the door of a Moscow hotel room:
If this is your first visit to the USSR, you are welcome to it.

John Miliunas
05-11-2006, 11:19 PM
See there, Lee...There's a reason you have 2K+ posts! And I enjoy them thoroughly!!! :D :cool:

Vaughn McMillan
05-12-2006, 4:29 AM
Good list, Lee. I've seen much of it before, but it's fun to see them. Sort of related to the Stu Ablett birthday thread, but true story:

If you go to the Babelfish Translator at http://babel.altavista.com/tr and enter:
happy birthday old man

The alleged Japanese translation is:
誕生日おめでとうの老人

Then, using cut and paste, if you drop the Japanese translation back into the machine and back-translate it into English, you get:

You question with the your birthday め the old person

However, if you enter:
happy birthday young person!

You get:
幸せ誕生日若者!

It will translate back and forth with no changes. Of course only Stu can tell us what 幸せ誕生日若者! really means. ;) Apparently it's off enough to make his wife laugh.

It's all Greek to me, but Babelfish can be pretty entertaining translating things back and forth.

- Vaughn