"Bloody Noun"

Saturday afternoon Ms. Zhang took Josephine and me "out on the town." We visited the Hubei Provincial Museum and all the ancient artifacts dating back 2,000+ years and then our driver took us to a nice restaurant. It was the first time I had a menu that offered English translations. But as I said to both of them, "just because it offers English translation, doesn't mean I know what it means!"

That's what we all found so funny: one food translation.

As I flipped through the extensive menu I kept going back to one line item: "Beef Bloody Noun." I inquired of my luncheon partners, "What exactly is a "bloody noun" I thought it a noun was a part of speech and does it mean a Brit is 'bloody well' upset with it?."

We all exploded into laughter. Clearly, the translation wasn't very good. This, of course, prompted my two Chinese speaking lunch partners to begin analyzing other dining option translations...none proved as funny as this one though.

This translation humor not only served as one of our inside—the 3 of us—jokes for the day, but will serve as Monday's example to my students when we discuss marketing research and the 3 major ways to address the challenging issue of translation. Talk about a timely example!