Mistranslation of the day.

[randomness]

Engrish.com has this photo:



I think what's going on is that 无公害 (wú gōng hài) as "non-public nuisance". I would literally translate 无公害 as something more like "without public threat", but clearly someone's machine translation is going haywire. A bit of net research seems to show that "无公害" is a Chinese legal term of art with accompanying certification for products and origination.

Possibly the right idiomatic translation in English is "green", or maybe "organic", but I'm not sure exactly because I don't know what the certification regulations say.

Comments

[klingonlandlady.livejournal.com]

but because of the placement of the hyphen, it makes me wonder if the eggs are going to be a private nuisance?

[intuition-ist.livejournal.com]

yeah, i wondered about that, but figured it was too subtle to even impinge on the translator/proofreader of that packaging...