August 25, 2008 11:25 AM
Your Balance is Latent.
Beijingers, as a whole, do not speak very good English. If you've been following the blog, this should not come as a surprise to you.There are some here who do speak English, and when they do, they tend to sound out words with unusual confidence, even if the words they're saying don't make sense.
An example: today, I went to make a phone call. Unlike the States, where most people have a cell phone plan, the Chinese use a pay-as-you-go system. I'm almost out of yuan on my phone, though, and when I dialed the number, I received a greeting in English.
"Your balance is latent," a voice said. "Please recharge."
Latent, as in "potentially existing but not presently evident or realized." It's possibly the most literal translation available to describe my cell phone balance, and I imagine that it seems perfectly logical to the people at China Mobile who decided to use that phrase.
I just wonder whether they ever focus group test this stuff on English speakers before using it.
August 25, 2008
12:24 PM
Flip Washington writes:
What is latent is the supposed craziness of the DNC - it's like a ghost town here today (at least in Uptown). Hurry home and stir up some sh!t.