The Monolingual Translator?

I work part time at a travel and tourism company here in Rio as the in-house translator. Well, technically that is what I am supposed to do, but nobody there thinks they need a translator, soooo I get paid to drink coffee and doodle.

You see, my coworkers (read: patricinhas) think that 1 summer in Miama studying English trumps my 22 years and a bachelors degree in Linguistics. Totally makes sense right? No! And the strange thing is, it's not just my coworkers. It's my boss too.

Granted, all bosses have superiorty complexes because they are, well, superior to their employees. But, to tell your translator her translation is wrong because it doesn't sound right in Portuguese....how does that make any sense?

I realize that "bancos do rio" doesn't make sense, and it should be "margin do rio"...but that does not mean that "banks of the river" has to be "margins of the river" in English. You see, they are two different languages.

At the end of the day, I don't care if her site looks unprofessional because she wants to use her craptastic English. I mean, who needs an in-house translator when your employees provide your site with glorious gems like these:

-"Cum drink a yum-yum in the hotel's slave quarters"

-"The church is filled with little negro angels"

-"The STD room has a contagious energy"

Yes, keep insisting your English is better than mine because those descriptions are F.A.B.U.L.O.U.S!!!

And, to the B$%*& who was under the impression that the translator (me) wouldn't understand portuguese, and asked a coworker right in front of me if I was a lesbian: No, i'm not, but if I were, you wouldn't make the cut!

Fala Engrish?

So I know we have all seen them, and probably been tempted to buy a few at one time or another. The A-M-A-Z-I-N-G Engrish T-shirts that you can find in any store in Brazil. And by "Engrish" I mean "English" with some glaring mistakes that should have been caught before being mass printed on thousands of T-shirts.

It has becoming a hobby of mine, spotting these shirts. I will literally run across the street Carioca style (ie with a death sentence) if I see someone with an Engrish shirt on the other side of the road.

I mean, these shirts are not just in the dollar bin at a crappy thrift store. People pay good money for their Engrish. But why? Is it just a chic thing to have English on your shirt, kind of like the Japanese character trampstamp? I can't help but wonder how these shirts made it here. I have a few theories.

1) They are fabricated here in Brazil by Brazilians who don't give a shit if they are grammatically correct or not because people will buy them anyways. So they find some words on the internet, print them out and start selling.

2) They are the reject shirts from some English speaking country. Kind of like, Brazil is the graveyard for all missprinted graphic tees.

I like option number 2.

To show my appreciation, here is a list of my Top Five Engrish Shirts in Brazil (yes I write them down when I see them):

1. Operation have sex anyone. all days, nights mine as too (11 year old boy wearing this one)

2. Sparkle and of night, music its for me unforgenable

3. Save trees, ride waves, smoke soundeds

4. Love, Bang, ALL

5. Out of Control (this one wasn't really Engrish, but this badass little old lady was wearing it while "Vai se fuder" ing cars that were honking at her while she crossed the street veeeeeeeeery slowly)

What Engrish shirts have you all spotted in Rio?