My Nominee for Butchered English Instructions of the Year

[scmhogg]

I ordered a hand held body fat reader for a couple of bucks on one of the daily bargain sites.

The instructions are incomprehensible. My favorite section is entitled Notice of Safety:

Notice of Safety [punctuation and caps in original]

It's safety for use for the following Prevent you or the other man don't be hurt, if you use to

mistake. maybe will happen something now can division two parts: " Notice" and "Warning",

please observe for god's sake.

Here is the whole page, I'm not sure how legible it will be.



Steve

[Uncle Cracker]

I'm sure they did not have similar problems reading the numbers on the money we sent over there...

[germdoc]

That's a winner for sure!

I am really concerned about the "venomousness gas", for god's sake!

[cwsmith]

Sometimes, interpretation is done by a computer program which can sound really stupid, and of course at others they just pick someone in the office (like the clerk or secretary) who does the interpretation, often with limited knowledge and the person just interprets one word at a time, without any knowledge of what the resulting phrase means.

I have never seen anything on the low level that was posted though.
Really funny.

I found a few peculiar instructions that I've run across in my years as a technical writer... of course these were written by American engineers, so they don't read "dumb"... but they do leave me with a questioning grin. Here are a couple of my favorites:

"All parts are the same, except where different and then they are of a different size."

"Make sure you install the compressor in a room of a size that allows for plenty of extension cords."


CWS

[Pappy]

I understood most of it.....

....Maybe I should swear off Harbor Freight!

[smorris]

One of my favorites was when I bought a fan for the boat.

"If fan does not blow air, then it sucks."