This was sent to me with the comment “It didn’t make me LOL, but it amused me.”
Not sure what I’m supposed to do with that: will WordPress allow me to create an lol tag in addition to the LOL?
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Comics I Don't Understand 
You could make a category of GRIN as a lesser of LOL.
I noticed the comic is ARLO-IKEA. Last I looked Ikea’s
instructions were 100% pictorial, i.e. no language(s). That way,
everyone is equally confused.
Thanks, Arthur: “grin” certainly works,
But what if we’re only grinning on the inside.
Can we have a tag for that?
:-)
@Arthur: Despite Bill’s name for the comic, I’m pretty sure he’s not assembling anything from IKEA. The screwdriver is a pretty big tip-off, since I think the only thing IKEA needs a regular screwdriver for is hinges. With the wheel in panel 1 and some of the other parts, my guess is he’s putting together a new grill.
CQ, Chuckle Quietly.
I agree on the grill. It kind of looks like the parts for a Weber Kettle, but I recall that being fairly easy to put together.
Be careful Bill, this could be the tip of a very slippery slope.
GS – Gentle Smirk
SS – Subtle Snigger
RB – Restrained Beam
SABDOTI – Superficially Amused But Dying On The Inside
…and on and on and on.
The reason I submitted this had nothing to do with the LOL/grin issue, nor the particular manufacturer involved(*). I just wanted to know whether anyone else has had a similar experience.
User manuals (and assembly instructions) for products sold in Germany almost always offer several other languages. I often compare the English and German versions, then read whichever seems to be the better (or “original”) version.
However, sometimes both are defective translations, and on more than one occasion, I have tried to confirm the meaning of an English or German phrase by attempting to puzzle out the Spanish or French text.
P.S.(*) This is definitely not IKEA, although IKEA almost always requires a screwdriver for their cabinets, both for the metal posts joining the corners and the little cylinders that catch onto them.
My reaction to things that are not quite LOLs can usually be qualified as “snort.”
It’s a kinda-sorta laugh, but not enough to actually produce a LOL.
I know it isn’t Ikea — but I have to name the files something I’m going to remember, and I don’t think in terms of anybody else seeing the names.
@Kilby: It seems these days most assembly instructions follow IKEA’s lead and do everything pictorially. Both the German and the English in my lawnmower manual are pretty good. Mostly I have to look at the instructions for tech things and generally the English is better than the German, even if it’s not necessarily very good in an absolute sense.
Many consumer products are made in China, and shipped from there to their final retail location. If you have different packaging for different markets, then you can put in instructions that are written for that market, by a native speaker. But if you have one package, which might wind up anywhere, then you need instructions in every language AND the budget for creating the instructions doesn’t go up. So a person who doesn’t understand any of the languages the thing is written in writes them, and those instructions are then translated into every language we need. Since we are making so darn many languages, each one only gets a fraction of the space we would have used for just one language.
Once upon a time, a very long time ago, I tested software for European release. The original was in English, and there was a FIGS version. The main thing I was supposed to find was cases where the word for one thing was much longer in whichever language was being tested, than it was in English, because the spacing for the words was set up for English, and longer words in, say, German, would have to be abbreviated rather than spelled out in full. I don’t speak (or read) any language but English, so there might have been some horrible spelling errors.
The biggest challenge for me was that I used a lot of hotkeys in Windows, rather than mouse click and select. The problem being that in different languages, the words are different, which means their initial letters are different, which means that the hotkeys based on the initial letters of menu items do different things depending on the language, even if the software has exactly the same functions in exactly the same array of menus.
“LOL” no longer literally means “laughing out loud”; people who have grown up texting use it for any form of laughter, including “polite, embarrassed laughter when something embarrassing or socially stressful happens.”
DAE remember an episode of (I think) Mad About You where they bought something with ‘some assembly required’ and the first line of the instructions were “Happy hello!”
Stan, those suggestions would all make great band names.
“Superficially Amused But Dying On The Inside” could be the name of my introspective first album. :-)
It’s okay, Grawlix. I hear the first hundred years are the hardest.
Ikea – ahhhh! Yes, not only do we eat dinner there (usually twice a week), but we do buy “stuff” from them also. After the first piece we put together – a large table for Robert to use as a desk – which allowed one to purchase different sections and assemble how one wanted – and apparently the way we intended to assemble it was not one of the choices, but after much yelling (Robert), crying (me) more yelling (both of us), sitting on hold forever before giving up, we figured out the subtle differences in drawings and managed to get the table together how we wanted, even if it was not one of the choices. Since then, we (okay I) have no trouble figuring out their drawn instructions.
At one point I talked Robert into buying a bookcase and buying glass doors for it to put his James Bond toys in so they would not get as dusty as they did on open plastic shelves. (This is in our office/library.) He built a wooden base for it as it stands in front of the heating vent, so the shelves are higher than the vent and the heat can come through. This year we added a second add on shelf as he acquired some Funco POP James Bond figures for his birthday. We were assembling it other than intended (they only anticipate one add on shelf) and needed assembly pieces – I pulled out the bag marked “Ikea stuff” and found the pieces needed. So nice that pieces repeat.
Just bought a wall magazine/folders rack from there too!
And yes, as Kilby said, a standard screwdriver is needed.
Also a lot more space than we ever have is needed. I ended up attaching the legs to his desk by sitting under the desk and holding it up with my head while I worked.
For anyone who has not been to Ikea – very nice, reasonably priced household items also – dishes, pots, pans, dishware, tableware, cooking tools, sheets, blankets, pillowcases, towels, scissors (I love the 3 pack of same), rugs, organizing, lamps – floor, table & clipon, office, wall clocks, and picture frames in sizes which cannot otherwise be found at inexpensive prices.
Thought of this after, sorru – on the other hand we bought an electric lawnmower last week. It needs a 12 gauge extension cord over 25 ft – and few if any lawns need less than 25 ft. So we bought the 12 gauge cord – actually 2 of them as we bought one and then found a better, less expensive one and that and will return the first one. He went to mow the backyard.
The cord has to be folded and inserted through a hole on plastic piece handing from the handle to hold the wire in place to cut down the chance of running over it. After inserting the cord through the hole, it gets pulled around a tab in the plastic piece to hold it in place. Good idea. It would be better if the hole was large enough to insert the folded cord into it and/or the tab piece was large enough to insert to allow the wire to fit between it and the main piece of the plastic piece. I had to walk parallel to him a distance away holding up the wire for him so he would not run over it.
Today after looking online for what to do, he telephone Kobalt. The employee had no idea what he was talking about, even after he gave them the page number in the instructions and went to get someone to help – and never returned.
At least the Ikea stuff actually fits together.