Keep out
The English part of this sign says “Please do not climb in this border!” The explanation was that these wild animals roam almost free on a sort of island, seperated by a ditch. As per the zoo’s website, there’s barely any fencing. Nans, who supplied this bit of Dunglish, asked me about ‘climb in’ vs. ‘climb into’, which is a non-issue since they’re both wrong here. Rumour has it they use the word ‘border’ in this context in Britain – I wouldn’t know. In the US they’d tell people to leave the animals the hell alone.
My answer is change the entire sign.
(Photo: Nans)
August 24th, 2006 at 11:11 am
Border would be a translation of the word ‘perk’.
‘Perk’is the Dutch word for a flower bed with very clear edges (eg On the edges of a lawn),the English word border (at least in England) means the same thing.
It is used in a wrong way here. (Both perk and border)
August 24th, 2006 at 1:37 pm
“My answer is change the entire sign.”
‘Stay there!’ or ‘Keep out!’ would be the most concise and logical text to put there, I guess.
I just wonder what else one could do in a border, besides climbing…
“Don’t dive in this border”, “Don’t swim in this border”,
“Don’t barbecue in this border”, “Don’t even think about doing *that!* in this border”
😀
August 24th, 2006 at 2:32 pm
This aggresive Dutch (never(!) climb…; what if someone is dying out there?) is already so strange that it is not worth to translate. The Dunglish sounds more pleasant starting with ‘Please’; the German version takes an intermediate position.
August 24th, 2006 at 5:11 pm
Three simple words: DO NOT ENTER.
August 26th, 2006 at 12:28 pm
Ik ken het leenwoord border als ‘perk aan de rand van een tuin’. De dieren moeten hier (via de greppel) klimmen om bij de border te komen, het publiek niet. Het bord moet gewoon een halve slag gedraaid worden, het is immers aan de dieren gericht. Althans volgens de engelse tekst.
September 8th, 2006 at 10:29 am
In dutch is strange as it is in english. So the translation is correct. They try to get you attention a get a message across.
They better could use a strange english sentence instead of a translated one. And yes, the word please is britsh and would very welcome to to be used. We dutch don’t use the word please very often. We think it is over the top. At least the translation of please is.