Tuesday, March 04, 2008

Chinglish ambiguity

I was just supposed to have been doing a short recording gig, but..... it turns out we'd got the wrong day.

One of my lady partners had set it up. She'd been told "Thuesday" by e-mail. Dangerously ambiguous, yes - but she'd had a long telephone conversation about it as well, and thought it was pretty clear they'd agreed on Tuesday, so she hadn't bothered to doublecheck. This is the kind of uncertainty that it is very difficult to clear up anyway, especially if your contact at the publishing house insists on trying to speak English rather than Chinese (my partner speaks very good Chinese; and the Chinese days of the week are numbered, so there's hardly any room for confusion).

I wonder what other calendar conundrums we might find ourselves presented with? Sarnsday? Mensday? Fronsday?

2 comments:

moonrat said...

yeah. this happened to me. resulted in an unnecessary $50 cab ride and being late for the gig (and not getting the part). sigh.

Froog said...

Hollywood's loss is our gain, MR.