JEDDAH, 10 December 2006 — As anyone who has ever resided, toured or passed through Saudi Arabia can tell you, the misspelling of some business and street signs around the Kingdom can be misleading and sometimes funny. Some here consider the signs embarrassing.

Arab News found businesses from restaurants to retail, convenience stores to large-scale companies containing amateurish spelling errors on signboards.

Terry Cabilojan, a creative design director at Magna Advertising in Jeddah, spoke to Arab News about the problem.

“The signboard is the first impression,” he said. “If it is unprofessional or unattractive, the business could lose potential customers... I’m sure that if businesses were made to clean up the spelling or grammatical errors it would be a boost.”

A majority of the people interviewed by Arab News agreed that spelling and grammar errors on signboards show a lack of concern or interest. What exactly is the source for the jargon jumble to begin with?

Some say it is the responsibility of the city municipality to proofread signs and business materials before approving them for display. On several occasions, both by telephone and in person, Arab News tried to get the views of the municipal officials responsible for approving signage on the matter, but they would not reply.

Others argue that it is up to the business owners themselves to take the time to get spelling and grammar issues right.

“After all, the businesses are the ones who need the customers not the other way around,” says Majid, a local shopkeeper. “Nowadays there are over 30 outlets all selling the same items. A lot of competition is going on. Why shouldn’t businesses be professional?”

And it is not just the Kingdom that is displaying signs of shame. Beijing has started a campaign to clean up incorrect English usage (or as some say there: “Chinglish”) before playing host to the 2008 Olympic Games.

“We have gathered a group of 40 experts from Beijing and abroad to work on standardizing English expressions in almost every field including tourism, transportation and business,” said Liu Yang, director of “Beijing Speaks,” a Chinese foreign languages program.

Saudi Arabia is also suffering from its own version of mangled English spelling. For example, it is common to see a sign advertising a “saloon” — which means a whiskey bar in the American Wild West — instead of “salon,” a place to get a haircut.

According to statistics obtained from UK-based Literacy Trust, the problem of spelling errors costs businesses money. Since 1999, the government has launched an initiative to strengthen spelling skills in schools by making standardized testing mandatory three times per year.

A Canadian woman so offended by the problem started her own blog titled, “Illiterate Businesses,” which displays businesses caught in the act of an error. She goes as far as to offer free editing.

“I’d rather spend 30 seconds making sure that a sign is free of errors than two seconds looking at one that’s wrong,” she said.