There's a crackdown under way in China in advance of the Olympics, but we're not talking counterfeit goods, steroids or political dissidents.

Rather, it's the grammar police that have taken to the streets of Beijing, trying to rid the city of "Chinglish" before the Olympics' opening ceremonies one week from today.

Chinglish, a phenomenon bigger than Yao Ming, is the hilariously ubiquitous mistranslation of English on street signs, restaurant menus and T-shirts -- "If you are Stolen, Call the Police," for example, or "No Noising" and "Pay Attention to Safe."

But Chinglish is not going down without a fight.

"You can't control these things," said Paul Payack, president and chief word analyst for the Global Language Monitor, an Austin, Texas-based organization that tracks the worldwide growth of the English language. "What's really happening is we're having a rebirth of two languages. You can't stomp it out."

Chinglish, said Mr. Payack, has existed for decades, if not centuries -- as long as uninflected, amalgamated English has mixed with tonal, ideographic Chinese.

The signs papering Beijing have long served as endless sources of amusement to English speakers there, but ever since Beijing was awarded the Olympics in 2001, the Chinese government has expressed an interest in cleaning up its collective grammar.

In early 2007, the Chinese government unleashed teams of language experts to patrol the city and fix grammatical errors. The country also set up a hot line and a Web site asking for volunteers to report language violations.

Thus far, said Mr. Payack, the country has re-translated more than 4,000 standard English translations.

For Vanessa Sterling, coordinator for the Pitt MAP program in the University of Pittsburgh's study abroad office, the move to eradicate Chinglish brings mixed feelings.

"On one hand, I can understand it's part of the whole move to make Beijing appear, as it is, a thriving city. On the other hand, it's part of the charm of China," she said. "I don't see how they're going to get rid of it all, which makes me happy."

Ms. Sterling, who has gone back and forth to China for the last 20 years, jokes that after living in Beijing for a while, "you want to go around with a big red pen and correct things."

One of her favorite examples of Chinglish was a giant sign saying "Beijing Is Waiting for You." It was meant to mean that Beijing welcomed visitors, said Ms. Sterling, but she would often wonder exactly what Beijing was waiting for her to do, and whether it would leave if she took too long.

Kaleigh Miller, a Pitt student who studied abroad in Beijing this summer, took pictures of a construction warning sign that read "Start construction to your pass to bring inconvenient ask to comprehend, thank for corporation" and of the Chinese equivalent of "Got Milk," or "Food is the first necessity of the people; milk is the first option among food."

When Everett Griffith was teaching English in China in 2001 and 2002, he started chronicling incidences of Chinglish on his blog, www.pocopico.com.

The blog, which has been featured in media accounts across the world, includes examples such as "pleasanty surprise of groping" in a shopping mall advertisement, "the slow measure of the chanted war song as soldier do, and bold and high" on a congratulations card for a newborn baby and "Genitl Emen," for gentlemen, outside a public bathroom.

"There's this whole area of humor that lives in language," he said. "It's a new, fresh blast of creativity. There's a good supply of that there."

Now living in Los Angeles, Mr. Griffith regularly spots Chinglish even on the streets of the city's Chinatown. Just the other day, he said, he saw a sign for "Sincere Imports," which he interpreted to mean that the items were authentic.

He's heard from friends living in China that the most egregious examples of Chinglish have indeed been fixed, but he doubts that the anti-Chinglish campaign will have much lasting effect.

"I cannot conceive of that happening," he said. "Our English isn't correct, so how can theirs be. To me, it's even more Chinese that they're trying to take it down. You didn't solve the problem, you just made it look better."

Mr. Payack noted that Chinglish has become trendy on T-shirts in China, and will live on in commerce even if the Chinese government can replace it on official signs.

And even though some of the Chinglish can be embarrassing for the Chinese, at heart it shows the best of intentions.

"It's something that we laugh about a lot, but it shows a real effort to interface with the world," said Ms. Sterling. "As much as we make fun of their English, you should hear what Americans sound like when we start to speak Chinese."