[travel] Maybe this is a hold-up. Maybe you should give me your money.

[mattbell]

A lot of people here have been taught to speak very polite English. This has led to some interesting mistranslations.

Hotel clerk: “Maybe I want your passport.” (I assume he meant to say “May I have your passport” It's common for cheapeer hotels to hold your passport hostage until you pay, though shadier hotels will hold it hostage for other reasons ).

Me: “Maybe not.”

Hotel clerk: “Then maybe you want to pay me now?”

Well, when you put it like that...

Comments

[vega-33.livejournal.com]

*shudder* that reminds me of the time our company outsourced part of its tech support to India, and we started mysteriously finding ticket responses or requests asking to "kindly do the necessary", or other english sentences with wrong verb parts etc. That foray into outsourcing ended pretty quickly *g*

[shandrew.livejournal.com]

"kindly do the necessary"

They're speaking the Queen's english.

Do the needful, bro.