Language [lähn-gwidge]

This thing we call English is awful who have to learn it. Period. From the bizarre (bazaar?) spelling to the sentence structure that which is convoluted, it's amazing that this language hasn't just been under rug swept long ago. Yet, since it seems to be a persistent little language (and since it's the only one I can type in) I'll use it here to illustrate just how difficult it must be for those lucky people who's language is not only much much older, possibly simpler, and actually reads left to right and downwards upwards and has millions of characters... I speak of course of the Dutch.

Anyway, I bring that up to speak on this: " Engrish" is the term used to describe the attempts at English often found accompanying that "Made in China" label. We applaud the honest effort at this beast of a language, but we also can't help but laugh when the result is a fabulous malapropism, unintended misnomer or complete and utter gibberish. I have in hand a perfect example of all of the above. Here's the story: I was touring scenic Lancaster County and realized I forgot a toothbrush so I picked one up a local Hess station for $2.19.

Unbelievable but true... there's a market for everything. My Colgate was a Counterfeit!

I guess if I had inspected it more closely I would have noticed the cheap looking, poorly formed plastic bits that made up the handle. I guess I could have detected that the soft rubber 'gripper' was actually just shiny plastic too. But what should have grabbed my attention was the lack of a ADA seal. Instead, it featured a seal of the "China Preventative Medicine Institute" inexplicably abbreviated CPMA. Not enough evidence? How about the zip code for "Colgate-Palmolive" - 510075. Why would someone bother to counterfeit a toothbrush that normally sells for under a buck-fifty? It's obvious! This knock-off toothbrush probably saved the Hess Corporation 2 bits worth of profit. I just wish I hadn't USED it before noticing the packaging. Hopefully the Listerine killed the spider eggs, Hantavirus or whatever else this thing might have been carrying...

Without further ado, here's a scan of the packaging, along with my favorite lines. (The lines line up with the respective spots on the graphic - if and only if you are using the same browser settings I'm using which is about a million to one shot. You can make the font size a bigger/smaller by holding down the CTRL key and rolling the mouse wheel.)