We've aaaaaaaaall seen it. The menus with the typos. The weird-ass t-shirts. For the love of G-d, I think there's a typo in my company's freaking NAME! (As explained in the link, I'm not going to write it out here but shouldn't there be an 's in it?)
Fine, we're not in America. I get it. But if you were going to open a restaurant in China...wouldn't you want to have a Chinese person proofread your menu first???
Benji If I Were A Bad Businessman: "Hey, Mr. Wu! Today's opening day! I can't wait to serve our first sweet and sour chicken!"
Mr. Wu: "I mahst tell you, Meester. Lahv-eett! You use way too menny 
's in the menu! You weel offend our pee-pehl!"
BIIWABB: "Who caaaaaaaaaaaares!?!? WHOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
If any Israelis are considering doing anything in English and would like proofreading and editing for reasonable prices, please contact me. And by "reasonable", I mean "it might be free unless I decide otherwise."
Anyway....check out this recent advertisement sent to me by the very funny Esther Kustanowitz who has articles and writing in more places than I can link to.
Huh??? They put the "class" in "business?" WHERE DID THEY PUT IT??? Ech omrim "you're missing a word there, achi"?
Hey, Israir, here's a slogan for you. "We put the D+ in Marketing."
Now...I've never flown them and will assume they're a nice airline. I don't want to sound like a jerk but I'm not a huge fan of the name. "Israir". It's pronounced "Isra-air." Shouldn't there be another "A"? Was Israel Air taken? I just think the name "Isra-air" is kind of stupi-id. But I wish them the be-est, really I do.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
"Two Egg Ro-olls and an Order of Chi-icken Fried Ri-ice"
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All I know is that the one and only time I flew Israir...the theme song from "Titanic" was playing as we boarded. Comforting? WHO thought of that!?
HAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!
What, like the theme song or Celine Dion?
"Neeeeeeeeear.....faaaaaaaaaaar......wherever you ehhhhhhhhhh......."
Celine Dion...but elevator music style...just the instrumentals.
Thanks for the shout-out. A few proposals--one to make life in Israel funnier, the other to make life in Israel better grammatically...
1) Create consulting firm that specializes in putting the "word" in "phrase in which word is not." That's our new marketing plan. [ex: "Osem puts the fresh in Bisli."]
2) Create amuta in which we assemble American writers and editors living in Israel and get them to volunteer their proofreading services for local businesses.
Thoughts?
(And btw, and most weirdly, the word verification I had to retype below-- GRMERI -- could also be the name of our Israeli company...GRMERI-CAN! I am so in love with my own brilliance right now...)
Since my current life is spent either at work or in the library studying and writing papers for five classes (stupid idea), I always know I can hop into The War Zone for a laugh.
That bit on Pesach was hilarious... I was actually laughing out loud, and the guy sitting on the computer next to me was looking increasingly agitated.
For the record, some of my favorite memories are of sitting in street-side cafes with my friends making fun of the HORRIBLE grammar on the menus. I think it was worse the farther south we went.
I ate at a grill restaurant the other day (really good one here in herzliya, btw) where you could order a "Bitcher of Lemonade".
Way back in the day, I knew someone (who knew someone) that owned a printer store. The owner happened to be an American. He said that he would tell his customers about their spelling errors on menus. But MOST of the people refused to change the mistakes, under the belief that they KNEW the menu was correct!
You can open as many businesses as you want, but its hard to change the mentality. (Maybe if the printer store owner was wearing a dragon-print shirt, things would have been different!)
Wow, some great comments here...
Esther, that is freaking hilarious. Osem puts the fresh in bissli...I love it!
Amanda, thanks for reading as always.
Mort, hilarious.
Loren....that is just annoying. I think I interacted with one of those people today. But also funny.
just stumbled upon your blog.. YOU ARE Hysterical.. I just got back from my first trip to Israel with my husband and his family .. I LOVED IT and we can not wait to come back.. you are so blessed to live there.. Everyone was so wrong.. they told us.. that Israelis are rude etc.. I tell you Benji .. it was unbelievable how sweet everyone was.. if someone did not speak english they would actually go find someone who did speak english. I even had one young lady who did not speak english but she spoke french and she tried so hard to talk to me in French.. ( pity I dont know french either) .. My hebrew .. well it leaves a lot to be desired.. EVERYONE was so welcoming.. if we got lost in the old city .. People would walk us places.. now there was an older guy who wanted a tip.. but that was cool.. it was a mitzvah to tip him.. As I said we can not wait to come back.. I am going to link u to my Israel blog so I can visit often..
If you go to Cafe Arlozorov on...well...Arlozorov Street in Tel Aviv, you can order a "prostitute toast" which features hardened mozorella cheese and prosciutto ham on a toast with creamy dressing drizzled on a salad.
Now maybe I'm just perverted, but I was thinking they were trying to put a play on words with "hard" "creamy dressing" etc...but no.
They sincerely just meant "prosciutto toast" and once again, ignored what their spell check said.
But hell, it's one of the cheapest prostitutes I've ever had in my life :P
While I am the first one on the bandwagon of "Look at this hilarious spelling/grammar mistake!!!!" I'm feeling a bit contrary today and will ask "why am I asking for an English menu when I live in ISRAEL????" Sure, you have tourist dollars reasons and English being the "lingua franca," so to speak. But I came to Israel to be Israeli.
On the other hand, I live in the "anglo ghetto", so who am I to make such a fuss?
BTW, in Jerusalem, Israelis I know are very happy to be corrected--in speech, menus, etc. But again, international city with high population of anglos in my neighborhood--they know we are just trying to help.
There's a reason that Israir is a distant second in the Israeli airline business.
Most local business people are especially purposeful about seeking a connection between expenses and sales. How many restaurants have you boycotted or picketed for bad menu-spelling? The entertainment value is a plus, no? Especially while you're waiting to get a waiter's attention.
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