A Chinese newspaper reports that an art gallery became infamous overnight for a badly translated sign.

The words over the doorway of the Chen Chi Art Museum in Wuxi, in the Jiangsu province of China, read "Enter the mouth," according to Nanjing Modern Express.

The museum's eatery has a sign reading "Translate server error," while a Coca-Cola appears on the restaurant's menu as "Small may be happy." News website Ananova.com speculates that an online translation tool was responsible for the linguistic mishaps.

The phenomenon of mistranslations of English words, especially in East Asian countries, has become jocularly dubbed "Engrish."

One website, Engrish.com, is dedicated solely to poking fun at such occurrences. Recent offenders include the dish "Desktop bacteria rice" on a menu in China, "Dumplings human" in a Vietnamese restaurant and a puzzling public sign bearing the message "Parabolic days at high altitude anger and resentment of people."

Most bad translations are easily explained by over-literalism, which happens when foreign speakers of any language rely excessively on dictionaries and automated translation tools.

Gene Richards, an American living in Chengdu, China, told The Atlantic in 2008 that national pride may be at the root of the problem. "Could it be the super-nationalism that's rampant now?" he asked. "They just can't bring themselves to admit that their overall level of English is so bad that they need to ask a foreigner to help out?"

There are counter-examples, however, says Ananova.com. The phrase "Long time no see," is commonly heard in English, despite its odd grammatical structure, and it is commonly thought to have originated in a foreign language.

31 January 2010