English is a Funny Language: Advertisement

A while ago I have this idea of starting to actually showcase some pictures that I took in various places that I passed by. I tried Instagram for about a week but then realised that I do not have the time and energy to actually ‘nurture’ another form of social media – it is indeed exhausting, isn’t it?

So last night I decided that I will put them here. I found that I took plenty of pictures that would actually enable me to create a series of blog posts, much inspired by ShitLondon. I hope this series show how funny English can be, especially when it is used by non-native speakers. Here is my first shot.

Ads

 I found this huge banner (it could have easily been 5-stories tall) hanging in Senayan, a very prominent location in South Jakarta. It was displayed between two most visited malls (arguably) in Jakarta, Plaza Senayan and Senayan City. A very strategic location for an advertisement, unfortunately the banner-maker/owner made an unforgivable typo by hitting the ‘S’ button instead of ‘C’. It was an unfortunate event, indeed.

The banner was displayed for at least two weeks and it made me really wonder: did no one bother to give the banner-maker/owner a call and tell them about the difference between the word “please” and “place”? What is wrong with our society? How can we let this painful mistake decorate our everyday sights?

Then it came to my mind: maybe this is the banner-maker/owner’s idea of advertising a strategic location for an advertisement. Maybe this banner is simply another one of those marketing strategy. Also, we have to give the benefit of the doubt to the banner-maker/owner by having English as their second language. In the end, we all have a laugh about it. So I guess, everyone is a winner.

 

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