Dunglish

Alice in Wonderland, that’s me with this surreal advert for some telecom thing with a woman. Alice is as clear as the dumb blonde portrayed in the advert. I thank the smart cookie who translated this so clearly. My sincere apologies if this was an employee who was forced to do so by their boss against their better judgement.

My favourite is “no astrixes”. Surreal things went through my mind, like Asterix the French cartoon character, Trix, the nickname of Beatrix the Dutch Queen (Queen of Hearts?), ‘tricks’, and more ‘not suitable for work’ things as well.

Another typical Dutch mistake is the use of “1″ to replace “one”. That was what we call ‘a dead giveaway’.

No year contacts? So much for signing up to call anyone…

Anything a potential customer cannot understand they will not buy, that much is clear. And if you buy because you like the girl in the advert, I can send you much more interesting pictures that are really no strings attached, if you get my drift.

(Tip: James)

I wants more! Check out the entire job advert. It takes a lot of energy to bushwhack through those subordinate clauses.

The company is half English as well, by the way. Someone translated this (by this I do mean the rest of the advert) and couldn’t be bothered to run it by someone qualified. I’m really surprised this went to print. Another odd trend is using too many capital letters, which looks more German than English or Dutch.

It’s also this multinational’s second appearance.

(Tip: Ziad)

There I was checking out the news this morning and found this nasty collection of Dunglish marketing terms in this Dutch article: “Regionale aanpak van marketing kan slimmer zijn” (roughly, “Regional approach to marketing could be better”).

I love how the author nicknamed the Dunglish used as “fantasy English of Dutch origin”. Rather than incorrectly using already existing English terms, these marketers show off their excellent breeding by coming up with their own English terms, making them sound like posh hicks, if that’s at all possible.

City marketing = destination marketing (and not place marketing)
Leisure stad (”leisure city”) = pick one language, please.
Full-time city marketeer (”full-time city marketer”) = Full-time destination marketer (you too, stick to one language)

For the record, ‘marketeer’ in English refers to those annoying people who call you up at dinner time and try to sell you something. Nice to know the Dutch took over the bad term ‘marketeer’ instead of ‘marketer’, which is the more neutral term. When I hear ‘marketeer’, I think ‘racketeer’. Now you will too.

The MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Congresses and Events) industry has been using the term ‘destination marketing’ for at least 15 years. Reinventing the wheel is stupid and a waste of time, two things marketing people should know.

The Dutch title of the article says that marketers should work “smarter”. Coming off smarter is probably not a bad idea either.

I think ‘beadroom’ is great. The classified adverts of this particular macshop are 50% in English for reasons unknown and the ads all stick out in their own way. My educated guess says this person’s passport might be Dutch, but the resemblance stops there.

So let’s play ‘graphologist’. I say it’s a man from a Latin country.