{"id":66549,"date":"2010-05-04T20:57:08","date_gmt":"2010-05-05T03:57:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/?p=66549"},"modified":"2010-05-04T20:57:08","modified_gmt":"2010-05-05T03:57:08","slug":"shanghai-is-trying-to-untangle-the-mangled-english-of-chinglish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2010\/05\/shanghai-is-trying-to-untangle-the-mangled-english-of-chinglish\/","title":{"rendered":"Shanghai Is Trying to Untangle the Mangled English of Chinglish"},"content":{"rendered":"

Shanghai is the latest Chinese city to try to eradicate bad English signage in honor of the World Expo. From the New York Times<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\nFortified by an army of 600 volunteers and a politburo of adroit English speakers, the commission has fixed more than 10,000 public signs (farewell \u201cTeliot\u201d and \u201curine district\u201d), rewritten English-language historical placards and helped hundreds of restaurants recast offerings.<\/p>\n

The campaign is partly modeled on Beijing\u2019s herculean effort to clean up English signage for the 2008 Summer Olympics, which led to the replacement of 400,000 street signs, 1,300 restaurant menus and such exemplars of impropriety as the Dongda Anus Hospital \u2014 now known as the Dongda Proctology Hospital. Gone, too, is Racist Park, a cultural attraction that has since been rechristened Minorities Park.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe purpose of signage is to be useful, not to be amusing,\u201d said Zhao Huimin, the former Chinese ambassador to the United States who, as director general of the capital\u2019s Foreign Affairs Office, has been leading the fight for linguistic standardization and sobriety.<\/p>\n

But while the war on mangled English may be considered a signature achievement of government officials, aficionados of what is known as Chinglish are wringing their hands in despair. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Shanghai is the latest Chinese city to try to eradicate bad English signage in honor of the World Expo. From the New York Times: Fortified by an army of 600 volunteers and a politburo of adroit English speakers, the commission has fixed more than 10,000 public signs (farewell \u201cTeliot\u201d and \u201curine district\u201d), rewritten English-language historical […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[116,20,5],"tags":[4362,4416],"class_list":["post-66549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-world","category-culture","category-society","tag-chinglish","tag-english","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"yoast_head":"\nShanghai Is Trying to Untangle the Mangled English of Chinglish<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2010\/05\/shanghai-is-trying-to-untangle-the-mangled-english-of-chinglish\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Shanghai Is Trying to Untangle the Mangled English of Chinglish\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Shanghai is the latest Chinese city to try to eradicate bad English signage in honor of the World Expo. From the New York Times: Fortified by an army of 600 volunteers and a politburo of adroit English speakers, the commission has fixed more than 10,000 public signs (farewell \u201cTeliot\u201d and \u201curine district\u201d), rewritten English-language historical […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2010\/05\/shanghai-is-trying-to-untangle-the-mangled-english-of-chinglish\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"China Digital Times (CDT)\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ChinaDigitalTimes\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-05-05T03:57:08+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/CDT-logo.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"186\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"177\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta 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