When Engrish Accidentally Makes Sense

The b5media office is just south of Accordion City’s downtown Chinatown, so I encounter “Engrish” — gramatically incorrect versions of English from southeast Asia — quite often. It’s quite rare to encounter Engrish that accidentally makes sense, as with the T-shirt shown below:

“Think twice before making any trunk calls” T-shirt

“Think twice before making any trunk calls,” the shirt says. Given that the shirt was being sold at a store that carried mostly club clothing for women and the social phenomenon known as drunk dialing, I believe the intended T-shirt slogan was “Think twice before making any drunk calls.”

In spite of this gaffe, the T-shirt slogan makes sense. The term “trunk call” is an archaic term used to refer to a long-distance call. Long distance calls, especially made from mobile phones (on which most “drunk dial” calls are made), can get quite expensive, so you really should think twice before making them.

Maybe they should give away these T-shirts with new mobile phones.

“Think twice before making any trunk calls” T-shirt

3 Comments

  1. sy
    Posted May 1, 2008 at 10:21 am | Permalink

    Trunk could be booty. Think twice before making any booty calls. Such as “Junk in the trunk” and a smashing of phrases occurs in translation.

  2. Posted May 1, 2008 at 10:25 am | Permalink

    @sy: As former booty caller and callee, I think your theory has merit. Well done!

  3. Posted May 1, 2008 at 11:41 am | Permalink

    sy had my exact idea. With the “junk in the trunk” analogy and everything. Well done, indeed!

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  1. [...] stores sells other shirts with Engrish, such as this one from back in May.) This entry was written by Joey deVilla and posted on July 7, 2008 at 12:02 am and filed under [...]

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