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,” 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.