Of Foreign Origin

• In a barber shop in Tokyo:
  "All customers promptly executed."

• In a Zurich hotel:
  "Because of the impropriety of entertaining guests of the opposite sex in the bedroom, it is suggested that the lobby be used for this purpose."

• From a Japanese information booklet about using a hotel air conditioner:
  "Cooles and Heates: If you want just condition of warm in your room, please control yourself."

• In a Leipzig elevator:
  "Do not enter lift backwards, and only when lit up."

• Outside a Paris dress shop:
  "Dresses for street walking."

• In a Bangkok dry cleaners:
  "Drop your trousers here for best results."

• Two signs from a Mojorcan shop entrance:
  "English well speaking."
  "Here speeching American."

• In a bakery in Vale af Kashmir:
  "First class loafer."

• In a barbershop in Zanzibar:
  "Gentlemen's throats cut with nice sharp razors."

• In the window of a travel agency in Barcelona:
  "Go away."

• On the box of a clockwork toy made in Hong Kong:
  "Guaranteed to work throughout its useful life."

• In a butcher shop in Nahariyya, Israel:
  "I slaughter myself twice daily."

• On the door of a Moscow hotel room:
  "If this is your first visit to the USSR, you are welcome to it."

• In a Tokyo Hotel:
  "Is forbidden to steal hotel towels please. If you are not a person to do such a thing is please not to read notis."

• In a Bangkok temple:
  "It is forbidden to enter a woman even a foreigner if dressed as a man."

• A sign posted in Germany's Black Forest:
  "It is strictly forbidden on our black forest camping site that people of different sex, for instance, men and women, live together in one tent unless they are married with each other for that purpose."

• In a Norwegian cocktail lounge:
  "Ladies are requested not to have children in the bar."

• In a Rome laundry:
  "Ladies, leave your clothes here and spend the afternoon having a good time."

• Outside a Hong Kong tailor shop:
  "Ladies may have a fit upstairs."

• In an Austrian hotel catering to skiers:
  "Not to perambulate the corriders during the hours of repose in the boots of ascension."

• In a Rhodes tailor shop:
  "Order your summers suit. Because is big rush we will execute customers in strict rotation."

• In a Tokyo shop:
  "Our nylons cost more than common, but you'll find they are best in the long run."

• On the menu of a Swiss restaurant:
  "Our wines leave you nothing to hope for."

• In a Budapest zoo:
  "Please do not feed the animals. If you have any suitable food, give it to the guard on duty."

• In a Paris hotel elevator:
  "Please leave your values at the front desk."

• On the menu of a Polish hotel:
  "Salad a firm's own make; limpid red beet soup with cheesy dumplings in the form of a finger; roasted duck let loose; beef rashers beaten up in the country people's fashion."

• In a Tokyo bar:
  "Special cocktails for the ladies with nuts."

• In a Swiss mountain inn:
  "Special today - no ice cream."

• In the office of a Roman doctor:
  "Specialist in women and other diseases."

• In a Czechoslovakin tourist agency:
  "Take one of our horse-driven city tours - we guarantee no miscarriages."

• In an advertisement by a Hong Kong dentist:
  "Teeth extracted by the latest Methodists."

• In a Yugoslavian hotel:
  "The flattening of underwear with pleasure is the job of the chambermaid."

• In a Bucharest hotel lobby:
  "The lift is being fixed for the next day. During that time we regret that you will be unbearable."

• In an Acapulco hotel:
  "The manager has personally passed all the water served here."

• From the Soviet Weekly:
  "There will be a Moscow Exhibition of Arts by 15,000 Soviet Republic painters and sculptors. These were executed over the past two years."

• In a Belgrade hotel elevator:
  "To move the cabin, push button for wishing floor. If the cabin should enter more persons, each one should press a number of wishing floor. Driving is then going alphabetically by national order."

• In a hotel in Athens:
  "Visitors are expected to complain at the office between the hours of 9 and 11 A.M. daily."

• In The Restaurant des Artistes, Montmarte, France:
  "We serve five o' clock tea at all hours."

• In a Copenhagen airline ticket office:
  "We take your bags and send them in all directions."

• From a brochure of a car rental firm in Tokyo:
  "When passenger of foot heave in sight, tootle the horn. Trumpet him melodiously at first, but if he still obstacles your passage then tootle him with vigor."

• Advertisement for donkey rides in Thailand:
  "Would you like to ride on your own ass?"

• In a Japanese hotel:
  "You are invited to take advantage of the chambermaid."

• In the lobby of a Moscow hotel across from Russian Orthodox monastery:
  "You are welcome to visit the cemetary where famous Russian and Soviet composers, artists, and writers are buried daily except Thursday."