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Brett Debritz, Brisbane, Australia

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Mind your language

When I was living in Hong Kong, a young female friend of a friend had some local workmen around on a sweltering hot day. Trying out her Cantonese, she meant to say: "If you fix my airconditioning, I will be eternally grateful." However, what she really said was: "If you fix my airconditioning, I will give you my body." I tell this story because it's funny and it's instructive. I see so many badly composed signs and overhear so much inexact conversation, that I really wonder what it would be like to be a non-English-speaking tourist in this country.