All Your Base Are Belong To Us

[Baker, John]

        My very wired nephew describes the catch-phrase as "definitely big
in the gaming/anime world."  He also pointed me to http://www.engrish.com,
which apparently is only one of a number of "Engrish" sites.

        In addition to the Zero Wing game and its offshoots, fans of Engrish
are also quite excited about the latest offering from Hiroyuki Nishigaki,
How to Good-Bye Depression: If You Constrict Anus 100 Times Everyday.
Malarkey? or Effective Way?  Unusually for a vanity press publication, it
has risen to #4225 on Amazon.com's rankings, which is quite respectable; in
contrast, the highest-ranking Henry James novel (The Turn of the Screw,
Dover edition) is at #17017.

John Baker


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Tony Glaser [SMTP:tonyglaser at MINDSPRING.COM]
> Sent: Friday, March 02, 2001 9:00 PM
> To:   ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject:      All Your Base Are Belong To Us
>
> Is anyone familiar with the "All Your Base Are Belong To Us"
> phenomenon? Is this the first time that a mistranslated Japanese
> phrase has entered the English language world in such a big way? I've
> seen various items of Japanese English pseudo-nonsense, mainly
> written on cheap backpacks, carrier bags, or sneakers, but I haven't
> seen any which have been promulgated by native English speakers as a
> result. It seems it's really becoming a catch-phrase.
>
> (If not, check out articles at
> http://hubert.retrogames.com/history.htm
> http://www.salon.com/tech/inbox/archives/2001/02/27/1424/index.html
>
> or the baffling thing itself at
> http://rmitz.org/AYB3.swf
>
>
> Tony Glaser