Dangerous fire safety protocol in Delft
A company in Delft who that doesn’t care enough to properly translate a fire safety protocol (!) shares with us its wisdom on what to do if fire breaks out.
‘End all phone calls.’
– Sorry Bert, I’ll call you back later, there’s a fire here and it’s getting hot…
‘The parking deck is not an emergency exit’
A terrible passive sentence that says nothing about what you should do.
‘Be disabled helpful’
– As in don’t leave anyone behind I’m guessing, including anyone disabled, being mentioned separately as if not covered by ‘Mind that no colleagues or visitors left behind’, which is not English either. Ouch.
‘Venture to the assembly…’
Giving too many confusing instructions is not going to work. Venture on!
And shouldn’t fire safety be IMPORTANT enough to this company?
(Thanks Gerard!)
August 3rd, 2011 at 12:17 pm
I’m guessing that “Be disabled helpful” is a literal (perhaps Google?) translation of “Wees invaliden behulpzaam” — that is, “Offer assistance to the disabled.”
August 3rd, 2011 at 12:24 pm
Yes, but having to guess what the fire safety protocol is if a fire breaks out is wrong on many levels…
August 8th, 2011 at 5:47 pm
The sentence about the parking deck is technically not passive, but you’re right that it doesn’t say anything about what to do (which the preceding sentence does, a little).
As for ending phone calls, it might seem obvious but people do need to be reminded that there is no time to waste, especially in trying to get assistance over the phone, gathering personal effects, trying to finish work, etc.
August 31st, 2011 at 4:13 pm
‘End all phone calls.’
– Sorry Bert, I’ll call you back later, there’s a fire here and it’s getting hot…
This is a funny one!
September 16th, 2011 at 2:02 pm
‘Do not run through smoke’ isn’t helpful either.
Does it mean ‘Don’t pass through ANY smoke even if you know there’s an exit on the other side’ or ‘Don’t run through smoke towards the exit because you might whack into something because you’re going so fast. Walk instead’?
November 21st, 2011 at 8:42 pm
hello , i pointed out a grammatical error and you removed my comment
you could’ve at least corrected the error
November 21st, 2011 at 8:47 pm
Sorry about that, thanks.
November 21st, 2011 at 9:18 pm
Anytime 🙂
Sorry if i came accross a bit blunt , it wasn’t my intention
Nice blog you have
BTW one of the things that annoy me to no end , and that i think qualifies as being ‘dunglish’
is when dutch people pronounce the word ‘cover’
(as in a song or magazine cover) , wrong
They pronounce the ‘o’ like you’d pronounce the letter ‘e’ in the word ‘nerve’
(same goes for how they pronounce ‘country music’)
urgh
(sorry for being off topic)
April 24th, 2013 at 7:12 pm
Since we’re correcting spelling, you either meant to say “A terrible, passive sentence” or “A terribly passive sentence”, but who’s counting!? Dunglish forever!