Politics from the Palouse to Puget Sound

Thursday, April 10, 2008

Dual Languages... Not Programming Languages Either

Does having more than one language on the outer packaging of a product bother you as much as it does me? I was in Dissmores today when

I needed to buy some windows cleaner. I have almost always purchased Windex for my glass cleaner. Today I noticed that Windex has everything in dual languages. So when you read the label you're assaulted with a lot of foreign words.

I was at Safeway doing my weekly shopping a few weeks ago and I needed some cans of corn. I found that the Green Giant can was nearly impossible to read the nutrition label as you had to sort through all the words written in a foreign language in order to read the actual things you want to read.

It felt very cluttered and I didn't find that appealing at all. I always read the nutrition label of all the food I buy comparing one brand with another for health facts. When I got to the Green Giant food can it was enough of a pain to read that I just put the can back and went with the can that was easier to read.

Today while in Dissmores I pulled out my phone with Internet access. I pulled up the website that was listed on the label of Windex. I wrote to them using their comments form.

I let them know they lost a sale today because of the dual languages. I told them that I bought the store brand which was written in English. I think that I will make it known that this is the case whenever I pass up one product for another due to the dual languages.

The last thing I want to see is our US currency have sub-words in foreign languages.

From my high school days, anything that wasn't English was considered a foreign language. Michael Savage has it right... Borders, Language, and Culture.

4 comments:

Bruce Heimbigner said...

More than likely the dual language is there because the product is shipped to other countrys. SO I'D BUY IT. This is an all American company that is EXPORTING.

Just guess, iduno

Scotty said...

I might buy that argument, but when I have seen products outside of America, something like Windex, or a can of Coke, the measurements are in metric only, not in English with metric in (parens)... So I have to believe it is put there in order to sell it to consumers who choose to not make English a priority in America...

Once again, Borders Language and Culture.

Scotty said...

"We have included Spanish verbiage on some of our product labels to meet the needs of the ever-increasing Hispanic population in the United States"

Part of the Quotation from the response given to me by SC Johnson

Mattwi said...

In Canada we buy US made powder, it is single language, English, once it hits Canada though, they slap a dual language sticker on it.

I can say I'm used to the dual language thing, as I grew up with it in Canada with it...

Even now, I buy Russian ammo and it is labeled in both English and Russian Cyrillic.