Engrish

I saw an offer online a while ago for a free pedometer in exchange for my email address, and I figured why the hell not, since I'm someone who walks a fair bit, I might as well attach some numbers to my walking to nerd over. I then forgot all about it, so I was pleasantly surprised to get something other than junk in the mail today, in the form of a shiny new made-in-China plastic gadget.

It came with a little sheet of instructions, which is highly necessary for a device with all of two buttons and one function (the two buttons let you scroll between a display of steps, calories burned, or distance in miles or km, and the second button resets it). For an incredibly cheap made-in-China plastic gadget, the instructions are surprisingly well-written. Obviously there was some cut-rate translation involved, but they're usable. There are a few gems: "When changing the battery, please call the expert [er?], or maybe cause damage" is kind of charming, actually, because it's arguably true - call an "expert", or maybe you'll cause damage! Most of the page is like that - the grammar and word choice is a little odd, but it works.

And then at the very end, I'm treated to this: "Breakable does not drop and wet."

...So close! It's literally the last sentence(ish) on the sheet. They were six words away from a more-or-less acceptable English instruction sheet, and then I guess the guy who knows English best took off early or something. I suppose it's possibly true, that breakable does not drop and wet, but...