Cheep Melins and Steacks

Living in Al Ain can be great. This city is hugely multi-cultural. There are people from all over the world living here. Generally, English is used as the lingua franca, with Arabic coming in second place. Of course, the local Emiratis speak their Arabic dialect at home, but since most labourers, shop assistants, mechanics, doctors, secretaries and so on are foreign nationals, even the Emiratis have to use English in their day to day lives. It's an odd situation (in my opinion), and a huge factor in why I'm not picking up Arabic as quickly as I would have imagined before coming here. However, as a result of all these different nationalities communicating in English, you do see a lot of incorrect English splashed around the place. I love it. I don't expect people to speak perfect English by any means, but I still enjoy seeing the "creative" spellings. Here is a small selection of some I've seen around the place.  Some of them are perfectly acceptable English, but still, I find them amusing somehow...

Here in Al Ain, Pierre Cardin seems to always have huge sales, and most of the time they are advertising this "deal"... It sure is a deal, but I still laugh. How do they make a profit?!? This is not a short term sale, this is almost a permanent thing, at least for the two years I've been here!

Hmmm... some people call it a "letter box", others call it a "mail box"... I guess here they're covering both bases by calling it a "letter mail box"

Is a "melin" different from a "melon"? No? They why spell it differently on neighbouring signs? Personally, I bought the sweet melin from Oman. It was yum! Oh, and did you know that Water Melon was two words?... well, in Al Ain it is!!

Cheep! Cheep! Cluck-Cluck? or Cheap Cheap?

enough said!

Steack anyone?

You know, no word of a lie, I actually had "seafood" written on my shopping list! How convenient!!

This is the new spelling of "Thomas"

I don't know why I find this amusing... but I do

Nothing phoney about Mr iPhony

Don't get me wrong, I'm not being mean, I just really enjoy the colourful English you see here. It can't be easy for non-native English speakers to come here and use a language that isn't their own. Geez, that was me in Japan for seven years! I'm not judging their English, just enjoying it.