I'm not bashing Thai people here, just their leaders who seem to absolutely refuse to consult native English speakers on their official signs. When it is a small business confusing "crab" with "crap" it is fine because that is a small business, it is funny, and you know what they are talking about anyway.
Where I think the humor gets to be a bit ridiculous is when it is something that the government controls and it is they that are in control of all the signs that they translate in the English all over the place from road signs, to tourism advertisements, to immigration notices.
I have learned in my time here that government employees are very reluctant to ask for help when they need it because (i'm guessing) doing so would indicate that they were not fully capable of doing their job. Instead, they release something that is accidentally humorous or sometimes, just nonsense.
On a trip recently to Koh Lanta, I had to go through the Krabi airport and some of the screens were advertising this. I have no idea what this is but it is alarming to me that the people who were involved in the creation of this program have no idea that DOA, especially when in all caps means "Dead on Arrival." This is a wonderful thing to have at an airport, seriously.
I don't think you even need to be a native English speaker to be aware of this, you probably just need to have some sort of military, medical, or video game experience and you would know this. I can only guess that this was left in charge of someone who thinks they speak English a lot more than they actually do.
I have experienced arrogance sometimes when I am teaching adults English and some of them have gone as far as to argue with me about how something is pronounced or grammatical structure, insisting that I am incorrect. I'm not trying to say that I know everything about the English language but I do know that I speak it effortlessly. I don't think about what I am saying I just know what to say.
One particular slogan that has since gone away and been scrubbed from the internet was an tourism advertising program that my friend told me about in Krabi and it was called
Krabi: The Must
This sort of nonsense is funny, but it actually doesn't make any sense. Again, since this was a municipal job and no English speakers were consulted, this sign ended up getting put all over the place.
Perhaps there is some sort of reverse psychology going on here and these people are just a lot smarter than I think they are because I did end up remembering their silly slogan and if it had made sense there is a pretty good chance that I wouldn't have!
Thailand is filled with Engrish like this and sometimes I forget to take photos of it when I see it. Next week I am going on another trip down south and I will try to remember to do so because honestly, there are some gems out there