Pigeon English Adverts

[Northernchimp]

Plenty of them on AT, eBay etc, mostly describing the car as 'economic.'

Do you try to see past it, or does it put you off? I would think twice about enquiring about a car if the seller couldn't cobble together a legible advert. If you're dyslexic or English is not your mother tongue, surely you would get somebody who could string a coherent sentence together to help you out?

Here is a typical example, I can just about work out what it means, but it shouldn't be this difficult...

http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/2014...

[Riley Blue]

Many people seem happy to post on PH without having their grammar, spelling and punctuation checked; why should adverts be different?

[mattshiz]

'service-fool replaced clutch, wheel mass'

So a fool replaced the clutch and the wheel has mass? erm....

[xRIEx]

Do you mean pidgin?

[Ozzie Osmond]

Errrm, if we're going to be pedantic, it's called PIDGIN English and has nothing to do with pigeons whatsoever.

[TheEnd]

mattshiz said:

'service-fool replaced clutch, wheel mass'

So a fool replaced the clutch and the wheel has mass? erm....

Might have been done by a cow. Contact him for moo information.

[Northernchimp]

xRIEx said:

Do you mean pidgin?

Auto correct...

[MartinQ]

Reminds me of the not-ads on sniff petrol.



And it would put me off from calling. It's really not too hard to proof read it first.

[Motorrad]

Never buy a car from a functional illiterate.

Note also that so called "dyslexic" people can always spell their excuse word if nothing else.

[davepoth]

That reads to me as if it's been written by a non-native English speaker. To be fair to them, they did a lot better than some people do - at least you can understand what's being said.

[Ozzie Osmond]

Vauxhall Corpsing?

I'm still looking for a Vauxhall Viagra!

[SV8Predator]

Northernchimp said:

Auto correct...

[confucuis]

Northernchimp said:

Plenty of them on AT, eBay etc, mostly describing the car as 'economic.'

Do you try to see past it, or does it put you off? I would think twice about enquiring about a car if the seller couldn't cobble together a legible advert. If you're dyslexic or English is not your mother tongue, surely you would get somebody who could string a coherent sentence together to help you out?

Here is a typical example, I can just about work out what it means, but it shouldn't be this difficult...

http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/2014...

Dyslexia is no excuse for bad spelling and grammar while using a computer. Nearly every computer these days has spell check.

Motorrad said:

Never buy a car from a functional illiterate.

Note also that so called "dyslexic" people can always spell their excuse word if nothing else.

As someone who has dyslexia I take issue with the term "their excuse". It is slightly offensive but I take it you may be referring to those who claim to have dyslexia but actually do not.

[JimmyConwayNW]

If its someone who doesn't speak English as a first language then I wouldn't expect it to be perfect.

It wouldn't stop me buying, I would call and try to speak to them. Potentially if it puts a lot of people off a good deal could be had. I had a couple of cars I picked up privately that had been fixed up by polish mechanics. Cars were mechanically great the adverts were poorly written. Didn't make the tax, MOT or service history any less valid.

[CrutyRammers]

Thread title fail.