English What Now? is an ongoing series based around the humorous, head-scratching, or just plain amusing English found around Thailand observed and written by Teresa Derr.
Teresa Derr, 134 YinD RPCV
As I’m getting ready to return home (perhaps I already am, by the time this article gets posted), I went through my album of ridiculous English photos to see what nonsense didn’t fit with any one theme and so has been passed over so far in my articles. In no particular order, here are the ones that I think deserve to be spotlighted from my two years in Thailand. Enjoy!
This shirt started relatively strong, with “nothing is to be got without pain” being decently understandable English that would believably be heard in a workout setting… but it quickly devolved from there. First, I have no idea what Poweraty GGD is, and a quick Google search couldn’t help me. But that’s alright, because Poweraty helps me if I help myself (unless they do mean help then selves, in which case, I’ve never heard of the verb selves and don’t know what action I should perform after I help). But then it gets very nonsensical. More has to less speed? I have no idea. But don’t be shy! Whyever you might be shy, just don’t be shy.
This is spelled right, cute, doesn’t look like there’s anything wrong with it – except it was the “Q” vocabulary card for the alphabet at one of my preschools. That is, 3-year-olds were learning from this. They didn’t know how to pronounce it. The teachers didn’t know how to pronounce it. I didn’t know how to pronounce it without first looking it up, because it isn’t an English “Q” at all! Even if they really, desperately wanted an animal starting with Q for their alphabet set, there are better ones out there. This was one of the first pictures I took at my site, because I was so baffled by the idea of teaching this as an alphabet vocab word. Oh well!
I disagree with the idea that the sky has nothing – on the contrary, the Sun, Moon, Stars, clouds, and even air itself are very important to the sky! – but I don’t think the sky has whales. So perhaps that is what they mean by the Sky has Nothing. Would putting Whales in the sky give “me” comfort? If not, it is a very sharp non sequitur, and I have no answer to the question “how to give me comfort”.
I did have to stare at this picture for a bit, same as Morgan did before she sent it to me, wondering what a “plenary sessiem” had to do with kisses. Sometimes, the shirts people wear baffle me, not just for the misspellings, but because someone had to design this, right? Why would Plenary Session be on the same shirt as Micky and Minnie Mouse? Or maybe I just don’t know enough about shirt design, and this makes sense to someone, somewhere. Very possible!
My counterpart was wearing these pants. It felt very relevant for me, as a Youth in Development volunteer dedicated to strengthening youth so they can deal with their issues. Do I want the limited or the unlimited version of Youth Issues? Psych! Limited version is all sold out, everyone gets unlimited issues. Now we get to feel out and explore how to solve them. At least, with my counterpart, I’m not doing this alone! We solve issues much better as a community.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
This is my final article as a Peace Corps Thailand volunteer, so I won’t be around to write about all the funny English you find in your everyday life in the future. That doesn’t mean I don’t want to hear about it! I’d love to see this ongoing series continue. Anyone is more than welcome to submit their own articles to the Editors to be published under this heading, and I’ll be following Sticky Rice from wherever I end up in the future to see them. Best of luck writing!
Sticky Rice 
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