Breen on Konglish

Michael Breen one my favorite authors and journalists on Korea has quite a funny article in today’s Korea Times about Konglish:

Whether it’s memorable lines in the English-language papers – for example, the legendary pilot who “was reported to have ejaculated before the crash to safety…”- or the lifelong quest for the flawless menu, I find that Poor English has enriched my life.

I’m not being superior here. I know my foreigner-Korean has added to the well-being of Koreans. One should not feel humiliated when a foreigner laughs.

In fact, we laugh at ourselves more. The error that leads to an unintended association is a whole genre of humor in all languages.

Particularly in newspaper headlines. Take, for example, the story of the man who escaped from an asylum and raped two women in a laundry and fled, the horror of which was relieved in one tabloid with the headline: “Nut Screws Washers and Bolts.” That was written by a native speaker.

Read the whole thing because Breen makes another good point about how history is taught to foreigners in Korea as well that I totally agree with. 

Getting back to the Konglish portion of the article I have always found it amazing how Koreans are just not willing to have any proof reading of their English language material done.  If I had a dollar to fix every misspelled or badly phrased English sign, brochure, menu, etc. in Korea I would be a very rich man.  Some of the misspellings would be discovered just by doing a simple spell check on a computer, but yet somehow they make it into the public. 

The ultimate example of this has got to be the new tourism slogan being pushed by the Korean government: Korea, Sparkling!  I would love to see a Michael Breen column on this.