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Feature: Mailbox spelling error just tip of the iceberg

"But the government could just ask their foreign friends in town to double-check for them and see if the English translation makes sense."

-- Dan Bloom, freelance writer living in Chiayi

"Promptdely," a word now printed on some of Taiwan Post's red mailboxes, could well baffle English speaking foreigners living in the country.

The word was created to replace "prompt delivery," the original term placed under the express service mailbox slot.

"At first, I thought it meant Prompt Deli service, as in delicatessen," said Dan Bloom, a US freelance writer living in Chiayi.

Bloom later brought this to the attention of the Chiayi Post Office. The post office personnel thanked him for noticing the error, but nothing was changed.

When Bloom first noticed the mailbox with the new term, he suspected that it was a nationwide phenomenon.

"I believe that they made stencils for the painter to spray-paint the new term on the boxes, and this stencil is the same all over Taiwan now," he said, adding that he was not criticizing the post office for the mistake and simply wanted to help get English-language signs spelled correctly.

Huang Hsiu-e (黃秀娥), manager of the Chiayi Post Office, told the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times' sister newspaper) that the word "promptdely" was an abbreviated form of the term "prompt delivery."

She said the post office has been using the word for many years, but that Taiwan Post Co has now decided to change it to "prompt delivery" so that foreigners and local residents would be able to understand it.

"We have not yet corrected the sign as per company requirements," she said. "We will try to update it immediately."

The discovery, however, is just the tip of an iceberg, with mistakes in English-language signs all across the nation.

On a sign placed at a crossroads on the campus of the National Tsing Hua University, one does not see directions to the "roller skating rink," but rather, directions to the "roller skatong rink."

The university's Vice President Yeh Ming-chuan (葉銘泉) said that now the error has been identified the university will change the sign immediately so that it is spelled correctly.

Yeh explained that although the university has an English department with excellent students and faculty members, few actually paid much attention to the spelling on the campus' signs.

He said that the design and the installation of the signs were usually handled by the university's administrative staff, who were more concerned about whether the sign was installed in the correct place rather than the accuracy of the English.

A blogger who identified herself as Tang I-lien (湯伊蓮) posted a photo she took last year in her blog (http://tnews.cc/022/newscon1.asp?number=1214), showing that the 120-year-old Taiwan Railway Administration is not exempt from making basic spelling mistakes either.

Rather than rendering its official title correctly, a sign at the station in Banciao (板橋) reads "Taiwan Railways Adninistation."

Signs with words like "roller skatong rink," "promptdely" and "adninistation" may be amusing to English-speaking passers by, but for the Taipei City Government, a lesson on the importance of correct spelling came at an expensive price.

In April, the Taipei Rapid Transit Corp was forced to withdraw a new batch of EasyCards it issued featuring Los Angeles Dodgers starter Kuo Hong-chih (郭泓志) after misspelling the last word of his name "chin."

Bloom said mistakes like these are normal, given that English is not an official language in Taiwan.

"But the government could just ask their foreign friends in town to double-check for them and see if the English translation makes sense," he said.
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