Gen. So-and-So's chicken

Planning a trip to China? You'll likely need help with the language. Not with Chinese, which The Morning File couldn't help you with anyhow, but with Chinglish, the name given to the creative collision of the two languages, which often produces head-scratching results. Some examples:

Emergency exits at Beijing airport read: "No entry on peacetime."

The Ethnic Minorities Park carries the unfortunate sign: "Racist Park."

A Beijing road sign warns of a possible hazard: "To Take Notice of Safe; The Slippery are Very Crafty."

"Welcome" often comes out "Welcome to come."

Some tobacco shops still advertise the sale of smoke instead of cigarettes.

A few mouth-watering offerings on a restaurant menu: "Corrugated iron beef," "Government abuse chicken" and "Chop the strange fish." Hold the mayo.

Chinglish broken here

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Most of us realize how difficult English can be only when we see it through the eyes of non-native speakers. (You try translating "men's room" into Chinese.) The Chinese have been extraordinarily adept at unintentionally hilarious translations, but the government is not amused, particularly with the 2008 Beijing Olympics on the horizon. So China has launched yet another drive to clamp down on bad English. New translation guides will be handed out at hotels and shopping malls, on buses and at tourist attractions, Xinhua news agency said -- even at places with no entry on peacetime.

More stuff lost in translation

Viewer contributions on BBC.co.uk:

A sign at the Terracotta Warriors Museum in Xi'an: "Cherishing Flowers and Trees" (Keep off the grass.)

On Yangtse River cruises, signs on the cabin doors said, "Don't Bother" instead of "Do not Disturb."

At the Simatai section of the Great Wall of China, a sign reads: "People and flowers, plants help each other in breath. If you pick the flowers they will die, and you will reduce your life, too."

A huge train station sign says "Question Authority," in a Communist state of all places. (The sign is merely pointing to the help desk.)

"Forbidden: Prostitution, gambling and drag abuse!"

A sign in a rock garden in the Forbidden City warned tourists: "Please do not climb the rocketry."

At a tourist attraction north of Beijing, a sign warned "Do not overtransgress."

A hotel offered with free (complimentary) bath stuff, a number of items for sale, including a pair of boxer shorts labelled "Uncomplimentary Pants."

And always handy is a "Collecting Money Toilet." (Public pay toilet.)

Is he counting : ) as a word?

Yes, the nation is logging its 300 millionth resident today, quite possibly an illegal immigrant. But you might not know that English is closing in on its one millionth word, and Chinglish is playing a significant role. We have this on the authority of Paul Payack, a non-linguist of a word-counter for Global Language Monitor of San Diego. Chinglish terms include "drinktea," meaning closed, from the Mandarin Chinese for resting; and its opposite, "torunbusiness," meaning open, from the Mandarin word for operating.

Of the 20,000 new words logged last year, Payack says, up to 20 percent were Chinglish.

French, which was the language of diplomacy in the 19th century but went into decline in the 20th, is said to contain just 100,000 words, none of them "Freedom Fries," you wiseacres.

In the 1960s, 250 million people spoke English, but now it's closer to 2 billion, or one in three people in the world.

We should note that professional linguists think Payack is full of it.

Reverse translation

Alvin Toffler, the American futurologist, is among 50 foreigners -- including Karl Marx, Richard Nixon, Marie Curie and Michael Jordan -- who have most significantly influenced the country's modern development. In fact, says The Washington Post, Toffler is apparently so beloved that government censors -- who might have better used their time editing road signs -- polished his image by removing potentially controversial references from his book, "Revolutionary Wealth."

The Mandarin edition adds an unauthorized preface, makes substantive changes on sensitive political issues, such as violent unrest, and deletes two-thirds of a page about what the book describes as the "cultist quasi-religious Falun Gong movement." Members of that group have been imprisoned and banned in China.

The 78-year-old Toffler, best known for his 1970 book "Future Shock," was more bemused than angry because he considers the book to be quite friendly to China. And really, what can he do, because, "The Slippery are Very Crafty."