By "newbie," I meant only that you were a newcomer to the English Message Boards, and nothing more. I'm hoping you will be a regular visitor and contributor to these forums. There is a need for more people with an outlook such as yours about language.

I'm sure you're absolutely correct that there are many visitors to Engrish.com who do not visit the hanzismatter.com site, which is a shame. It can be extremely funny, I know. I've visited it more than once over the past seven months. Personally, I think it's a great site and so do many other people, as can be judged by the amount of e-mail I receive from non-Engrish-enthusiast friends who know I enjoy such things and think a link to hanzismatter.com would be a valuable addition to Engrish.com "to show how it works both ways." I agree, and point them to the Links page of this site, where it's already listed. In fact, I have a vague memory of submitting a link to hanzismatter myself last year. So if I seemed a bit brusque about the entire matter, it's because I've been through it before, and many times. My apologies.

Mistakes in any language can be both amusing and fascinating (I include myself in the group of people who make mistakes--I make plenty). But what fascinates me in general is language itself, which is why I enjoy this site and many others dealing with such things. It's a way of playing around with words, and also underscores the way that people of different cultures use language to communicate with each other even when they're not conversant in each other's language. And then there's the way Americans have of "borrowing" (i.e., stealing) words from other languages and then getting all shirty about Americans Must Speak English Only.

And we have any number of atrociously funny blunders in signs and labels right here at home. At least twenty-five years ago, I got much enjoyment out of "True Facts," which was a section in the old National Lampoon magazine that dealt with all sorts of crazy things, including blunders and missteps with signs, shirts, packaging, and so forth. Most of these mistakes were American, though foreign examples would also be included from time to time. They were all equally funny.

Finally, much of what I write as "Engrish" is actually not making fun of any particular culture. I'm not making fun of anything so much as myself. Many of the phrasings and spellings I use actually come from my own family members, who murder the grammar and the language constantly.
=^_^=

AAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIAAAAAAAAAAEEEEEEEE! IT IS MOVING AND IT SEES US
"Lets' doing the Monkey with me!"

DO NOT GO IN The ATTIC!
EVEN IF ATTIC OF SEXY, NOT TO GO IN!
WATCHOUT OF A WASP ALSO! AND NOT MAKE LICK OF IT!
THIS IS WARNING OF YOU!