Civilized dog

Language Log 2025-01-04

The large characters say:

wénmíng yǎng gǒu

文明养狗

"raise [your] dog [in a] civilized [manner]

This one is difficult for the machine translators to deal with.

The fine print says:

qǐng jíshí qīnglǐ chǒngwù páixiè wù

请及时清理宠物排泄物

"Please clean up your pet's excrement promptly"

The machine translators do a credible job with this one.

We've had countless variations on "civilization" + "urination / defecation" in the China department of Language Log.  See "Selected readings" for a bare sample.

Selected readings

Of the numberless relevant posts, these are just a few of my favorites.