15 Global English mistakes

Advertisement:
Restaurant menu:

Try our delicio Shop sign:

us
burned food. Happy Food
Shop – Entrance.
New improved Alien’s entrance
Notice at a zoo: Colour Loser Printer XT300 at back.
Do not feed
the animals. Plane ticket:
If you have Fight no. XZ230
Computer advertisement:

… and last but not leas the

any food, programme has its own
please give it built-in spellchocker …
Advertisement:
to the guard.
Fantastic S
weat Cola
Road sign:

Unclear Power
Station 2 km Printed rules:
Notice at airport check-in desk:
It is against the law to sell your car
to a person you have owned for
We take your
Takeaway restaurant: less than six months. bags and send
After a hard day’s work them in all
don’t get stressed cooking. Outside a department store: directions.
Call us and we will cook you.
Open
7 days a week
Notice by road: and at
weekends

Please Do
drive Luggage office in station: not
throw
sideways this sign
You can lose into the lake
your luggage
here.

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Pre-Intermediate Teachers Notes.indd 30 11/16/10 1:06 PM

 15 Global English mistakes
Activity
Pairwork. Discussion.
Focus
Understanding context.
Preparation
Photocopy one worksheet for each pair.
Procedure
• Remind students that English is widely used around
the world now, but not everyone speaks it perfectly.
Say that you have a collection of some strange notices,
advertisements and signs.
• Hand out a worksheet to each pair.
• Use the first picture as an example (Restaurant Menu:‘Try
our delicious burned food.’) Ask students what the
mistake is and elicit a possible correction (burned should
be cooked – or roasted / boiled, etc.). Ask them if they
think it is a funny mistake.
• Tell pairs to look at the other items. In each case they
should decide what the error is, correct it and say if they
think it’s funny or not.
• At the end you can collect answers and opinions, and
maybe ask if students have noticed any other mistakes
around their town.
Pre-Intermediate Teachers Notes.indd 31
Answers
Try our delicious burned food. (Burned food would not
be delicious!)
New improved Colour Loser Printer XT300 (Loser should
be Laser.)
Happy Food Shop – Entrance. Aliens entrance at back.
(Aliens are creatures from another planet: The writer
probably meant visitors.)
Do not feed the animals. If you have any food, please
give it to the guard. (It sounds as if the guard is hungry!)
Fight no. XZ230 (Fight should be flight)
Fantastic Sweat Cola (Sweat is the liquid we get on our
skin when we get hot or do exercise. The writer probably
wanted to say sweet.)
… and last but not leas the programme has its own
builtin spellchocker … (There are two spelling mistakes
in the advertisement! Least and spellchecker.)
Unclear Power Station 2 km. (Should probably be
Nuclear Power Station!)
After a hard day’s work don’t get stressed cooking. Call
us and we will cook you. (They wanted to say ‘We will
cook for you’. The wrong sentence means that you are on
the menu!)
It is against the law to sell your car to a person you
have owned for less than six months. (This sounds as
if you have owned the person.)
Open 7 days a week and at weekends (How many days
are there in a week? 9?)
We take your bags and send them in all directions. (That
sounds like an explosion!)
Please drive sideways. (You can drive forwards or
backwards but driving sideways is impossible!)
You can lose your luggage here. (The writer meant to say
leave not lose.)
Do not throw this sign into the lake (This is the only
message on this sign – so I wonder why they wrote it!)
11/16/10 1:06 PM