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Given that Ambassador City Jomtien in Pattaya is billed as the world's largest resort complex, you might imagine that that they'd get their glossy brochure proof-read by a native English speaker - but you'd be wrong. In their Premier Supper Club, you are invited to "relieve yourself in an ideal of karaoke and live music in bewitching time."

I don't want to dwell on the debauched scene that this conjures up but their dry-cleaning bill must read like a telephone number.

In Thailand, amusing examples of the misuse of written English can be found just about everywhere. I've yet to read a Thai/English menu that doesn't list at least one "hairy dog balls" type dish. Last week, I saw an ad for an electric shower that promised buyers the dubious pleasure of "a water heater in the backside."

Even multi-million dollar real estate developments get the treatment. The bizarrely named TIT Tower is hardly Bangkok's most desirable address. Off Silom Road we have PMT Mansion - an apartment building that I imagine to be full of frazzled English girls leaving a hot iron to burn through their favourite blouse as they retrieve spilled frozen peas from the floor.

For the benefit of American readers, I'll suggest to the owners that they change the name to PMS Mansion.

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We can't blame the mom & pop businesses for getting it wrong. However, it seems that even the blue-chip companies don't bother to ask a native English speaker to cast an eye over their ad copy before it goes to print. The mistakes aren't always howlers but poorly chosen expressions and grammatical errors are the norm rather than the exception.

Consequently, when they take out expensive full-page ads in the Bangkok Post, companies like BMW and Orange (and plenty of others) succeed only in advertising their incompetence.

Everyone laughs about it and the solution is obvious but, like turning the clocks back in the autumn, we have to accept it as a bit of deeply ingrained stupidity that will never change. Just like daylight saving, most people think it's silly but raising the issue is futile and those in charge think that they're doing a great job.

Tomorrow, I'll use a rather amusing case history to explain why Thailand's leading companies make such a hash of their English language advertising.

(See Tinglish howlers #2: Nok Air)

[Posted to Thai Secrets by David]

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