I went to K-Mart this weekend and bought some Scunci magic grip hairpins (love 'em, love 'em, best hairpins ever).  On the back of the package, however, it says that they will "hold an excessive amount of hair"!  Excessive means too much or too great, so they're basically insulting their customers--"if you have too d--- much hair, come buy our product!  We're not proud!"  I know what they mean, but you'd think one of the copywriters would crack a dictionary occasionally.  I"ve been feeling that my hair isn't nearly long enough lately and it's nice to know that my hair is excessive by some standards!   ;)

It always irritates me when marketing or promotional material has typos, incorrectly used words, misspelled words, or poor grammar.  It does not shed a good light on the company.

At least you don't see poor translations so often. Though most people here know English, it is the law, that product information must be translated in Finnish. Ok...I know, that Finnish with its five million speakers isn't exactly a world language, but neverthless, if they want to sell their products in our market, would it be too much trouble to translate those obligatory three lines or so of information so that they could be understood? The mistakes that result from bad translation programs are hilarious- except if you are one of those who can't check the original meaning from English text.

We probably don't see it as often as you do, but we get our share of poor translations - usually from Japanese.  You are right - they can be hilarious.

*giggles and agrees with Bikerbraid*

It's really funny to go to the "World Market" (A US store that sells culinary delights and gadgets from around the world) and buy some Japanese items... they NEVER get the translation right!  *laughs*

It is amusing, though.  You just have to smile, nod, then roll your eyes....   ::)

*giggles*