As a regular reader of the English language newspapers in Taiwan, I am used to unusual interpretations of grammar and spelling rules, but this article from today’s China Post really had me scratching my head.
See if you can work out what it means on your first read through. Here are the first three paragraphs as they appeared:
[quote]
A banana is worth four hen’s eggs.
The China Post staff
A usually cheaper Kaohsiung banana is extraordinarily dearer.
Hen’s eggs, well, are cheaper now - that’s to say in comparison with bananas - not exactly thanks to an unmaterialized threat of a bird flu epidemic.
So you can get four eggs or one banana, for they are equally worth NT$16, give or take a one NT. [/quote]
As this is obviously such a vital piece of information, I would expect the editors to ensure that it reaches the reader in an intelligible format.
Has anybody found an article more garbled than the above example?