Monday, May 12, 2008

Lost in translation

Meet Coco the fish. He is not Nemo. He is “amusive.” He is my son’s new favorite toy.

The Baby’s uncle Steve and aunt Bibi got this gem for him from a street vendor in Thailand. As you can see by the packaging, no one was really checking the translation closely. I looked it up, just in case, but amusive is not a word. At least not in English.

This is one funky fish (hey, now that would have been a better name!). It rolls around the floor with “real fish motion,” plays “dulcet” music and “immediately change direction when hitting.” In other words, it rolls around the floor blaring a 10-second loop of techno music, crashes into furniture and toys and turns around. Its tail has strobe lights. It makes The Cat nervous and engrosses The Baby. Did I mention that you can’t turn off the sound?

Aside from the wacky name, oddball adjectives and poor phrasing, there are also sentences on the package that make no sense whatsoever. My favorite? The very top of the package, which exclaims, “Let we play go!”

Tee-hee.

4 comments:

Kat said...

HAHA!!! That is too funny! Of course it is only funny because we didn't get it for a gift. ;)
Can you accidentally break it? jk

Momisodes said...

LOL!!! That is so hilarious :) Indeed those are all lost in translation ;)

Kayris said...

Didn't you know? Amusive means "obnoxious Disney character with no volume control that makes mothers lose their minds." My cat would be hanging from the ceiling fan. I've found a big piece of duct tape across the speaker to be great.

Muffin Cake said...

I am laughing SO hard at this!!!