I always enjoy reading instruction manuals. They’re filled with misplaced modifiers, split infinitives, curious fragments and hilarious typos of all shapes and colors, especially with imported electronic gear. But this post isn’t about any of those things; it’s about an unusual paragraph in the instruction manual from a new oven I recently bought. If you can’t read the highlighted text there from the actual oven manual I scanned, the words go like this:
IMPORTANT: The health of some birds is extremely sensitive to the fumes given off during the self-cleaning cycle of any oven. Move birds to another well ventilated room.
Okay, so this is bizarre in a few ways, right? For starters, shouldn’t it say, “IF you own birds, please move them…” How can they just assume that I have a pet bird? They further assume that I keep my pet bird in the kitchen. Shouldn’t it read, “IF you own a pet bird and DON’T keep it in a well ventilated room away from the kitchen, please move it there pronto!”
It’s also strange because, well, let’s face it folks, imagine the testing that went on before they discovered birds dying.
Lastly: hello?! Anyone ever hear of the canary-in-the-coalmine syndrome? If birds are up and dying, maybe we humans should move to a well ventilated room while the oven is cleaning, too!
Rant over. If you have a funny instruction manual story to share, please do. I’ll leave you (after the jump) with a couple other good ones I found over on one of my favorite sites, always good for lots of laughs: ThisIsBroken.com
Jeremy Esland writes:
Somehow I lost my office scissors, so the next time I was in Staples, I bought a new pair of scissors made by Tonic Studios.
Back in the office, I tried to get them out of their display packaging – seems I needed a pair of scissors to free them. Ok, that’s no problem – I just bought a pair, right?
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re: Nesquik
You know, I did that very thing with a bottle of orange juice while driving on vacation. I wasn’t exactly paying attention. There was juice EVERYWHERE!
posted by Robert Lawrence on 9-28-2007 at 6:12 am
we had the same thing happen to us with the scissors this summer. except there were two pairs, and we couldn’t get either out. i think we ended up using an ink pen to jab it until we could finagle out the scissors.
posted by Kim on 9-28-2007 at 6:24 am
My mother bought me a sewing machine for Hanukkah a couple of years ago and the instruction manual is PRICELESS. I think it was translated from Japanese to German to Xhosa and then to English. It’s absolutely unreadable.
posted by Rachel on 9-28-2007 at 6:45 am
“The health of some birds is extremely sensitive to the fumes given off during the self-cleaning cycle of any oven”
OMITTED FROM THAT SENTENCE: “especially if they are IN the oven.”
posted by Nance on 9-28-2007 at 7:27 am
Bought an air conditioner from Sears a few months ago. Works great… after I figured out the manual, which I suspect was originally in Chinese, translated by a non-native speaker into Urdu, then again translated into Farsi, then to Finnish, then English.
Haven’t had such luck with a new TV I got from Target. Suspect the manual was originally in Chinese (the box said it was “made in China”), translated into Bantu, then Tagalog, then Flemish/French, then FORTRAN (which I *do* speak), and finally thru a series of unhappy accidents, into English. *Still* haven’t figured out how to program the damn thing! I had better reception and channel control with my old SONY (bought in 1985). Sad to say, it died a noble death.
And while I’m on my current rant, why the HELL do the manufacturers put buttons in these remote control gadgets that I will NEVER use – or figure out what they’re for, based on their “manuals”? What the f**k is a “Q-view” and “angle”?
Rant mode *off* – although I’m still pissed that I can’t see ‘CSI: Miami’ anymore. Gotta go to a friend’s house.
posted by Doc on 9-28-2007 at 7:32 am
Several years ago, Car and Driver had an article detailing some ridiculous items it had found in automobile owner’s manuals. One read “Do not subject knob to twistery.” But my favorite had to be a control that was labeled “Information center illumination intesification potentiometer”. Translated for normal people, that was the dimmer switch for the dash lights.
posted by Anthony on 9-28-2007 at 8:16 am
Unfortunately, silly precautions like the bird/oven example are usually included because that situation did actually occur somewhere, and the company got sued over it…
See children’s Superman costumes with the disclaimer “Cape does not enable user to fly.”
posted by Katherine on 9-28-2007 at 8:22 am
Actually, the bird-in-the-kitchen scenario is legit. If non-stick pans get scratched, and then heated up, they can release poisonous fumes. Because canaries and other birds are very sensitive to these fumes, people sometimes keep them in the kitchen as a sort of warning device. If fumes are produced, they’ll kick it early on, thereby serving as a warning to whoever’s in the room to get out.
posted by gibson8tor on 9-28-2007 at 9:51 am
My wife used to work for company that produced pot-belly stoves. After an unfortunate incident, each one came with a stamped-on warning: Caution: Product is hot while in use.
posted by Harold on 9-28-2007 at 9:54 am
If you want to see some really funny instruction manuals / signage / etc. check our engrish.com it is primarily english from Japan.
posted by Ed on 9-28-2007 at 10:08 am
I’ve always been intrigued by paper towel dispensers in bathrooms, the ones where the towels come out atuomatically. When that doesn’t happen, there’s a knob on the side. And there’s always a label: “In case of emergency, turn knob to obtain towel.” A paper towel emergency? That doesn’t sound good…
posted by cousin on 9-28-2007 at 10:08 am
To be fair, some apartment-dwellers have limited space and might perforce keep their feathered friends too near the kitchen. A friend of mine lost two parakeets a few years back via mysterious causes; only when she got her gas bill a week later did she discover her oven was leaking.
posted by Jill on 9-28-2007 at 10:45 am
As mentioned above, the imperative to remove birds is worded in such a way that one cannot sue the company for suggesting avian relocation too weakly.
“You didn’t tell me to move by bird from the ‘laundry room’ which is immediately adjacent to the kitchen and only has a bed sheet for a separating wall.”
Doc, I think Angle is for DVDs that include multiple camera views, like that one King Crimson concert video (The Thrak tour one).
posted by mungley on 9-28-2007 at 12:31 pm
My boyfriend bought a scope for his shotgun from a gun show a few months back, the instrucion manual was translated very poorly from chinese to english, ie insert doorknob into elbow and turn,
posted by Lindsey on 9-28-2007 at 12:52 pm
A few years ago, my mom got a prescription for back pain or something. The pills were fairly large.
The prescription label on the bottle said, “Take one daily in right eye.”
posted by antisense on 9-28-2007 at 1:16 pm
re: Cousin
My friend and I were just talking about that. The only emergency we could come up with that would require paper towels was if someone was bleeding profusely… but in that case, I think they’d have bigger problems than the towel dispener malfunctioning.
posted by sporkk on 9-28-2007 at 1:58 pm
On a vending maching burrito that I had the dubious joy of eating a few weeks ago, the cooking instructions read: “Heat Until Hot”.
You think?
I wonder if they should add “Eat Until Gone” and “Repeat Until Full”… just for the folks that aren’t so quick on the uptake.
posted by Slim McCoy on 9-28-2007 at 2:12 pm
I purchased an inflatable mattress to accomodate a weekend gathering of my 6 sisters at my house. When we took it out of the box and were reviewing the instructions on how to properly inflate it, we found the instructions to be in French. We determined we would have to depend on the illustrations. We were doing fine until one illustration stumped us. The illustration showed the hole in the side of the mattress where the air pump was to be connected. It showed a human hand stuffing a banana into the hole. It then had the circle with a slash, indicating not to do what the illustration was showing.
We couldn’t figure out why this illustration was there. Had the manufacturer received many complaints of people who encountered lowered performance of the mattress due to stuffing bananas into the air hole? It would seem that more complaints would have been received regarding M&Ms or grapes, as they would have fit better.
posted by Magnolia on 9-28-2007 at 10:48 pm
A few weeks ago, my mom showed me something funny on mapquest.com. If you type in the prompt for a route from New York to London (I think. I forget the exact locations), it’ll give you a bunch of driving directions until about the 23rd one down, which says to “Swim across Atlantic Ocean”. Heh. Easier said than done.
And a favorite of mine is on a package of Dove soap: “Use like regular soap”. Big help there.
posted by heather on 9-28-2007 at 11:41 pm
Memo to Doc:
I agree with you! And: Sadly, Horatio will succeeed in making Miami safe, even without you!
Worse: Are the people who design modern remotes, all idiots?
All the buttons on my JCV remote are roughly the same size and shape. And they are all grey, with white markings beside them (on the casing).
A button I use often – MUTE – is tiny and stuck with the channel numbers. As for the buttons on the TV, well, for modern TV’s, I can never figure out the volume -vs- the channel buttons without pressing them FIRST!
I labelled the small metallic grey buttons on the metallic grey case of my Electrohome TV with white paint:
A white blob on the power button, and a Big V above the two volume buttons, and a big C above the 2 channel buttons. And since the Audio & Video plugs are identical, I labelled then V and A in white. I intend to do the same to the JVC.
The same applies to knobs, buttons and switches in CARS. All are usually black, small, labelled in tiny letters, and nearly identical in size and shape….
Might this not contribute to auto accidents? Especially at night?
And what about winter? Here in Canada, it gets COLD. So we wear heavy gloves. Are all cars designed in some lucious tropical place? If so, don’t the black buttons get searing hot in the sun? Might not a flat matte white be better? Which might help the rest of us too?
Lights burn out. Must they all be positioned and mounted in such a way that the talents and tools of a Starfleet Engineering Crew is needed to change a silly front turn signal bulb? Or is this a ploy to lure us to the Dealer so we must pay a mechanic $40 to do it? And some other bulbs are worse.
NASTY: One “automatic switch” died in my Plymouth Acclaim. (An otherwise pretty good car…) My mechanic charged me $500 to fix this. The dammed thing is buried in the dashboard, out of reach of anything. They had to take half the car apart to fix it….
Honestly, should not the government be passing laws about this, rather than forcing us to use inefficient, unsafe, and polluting, and highly problematical fluorescent light bulbs. Which incidentally do not last 7 years. Try 7 weeks.
I have to go. My blood pressure is rising. And I have not even mentioned computers or the internet….
I will spare the readers further rants. But I may come back to read theirs…..
posted by Pierre on 9-29-2007 at 12:28 am
It’s been several years, but remember when those car window visors to block out the sun were popular. I remember mine had a warning in the bottom right corner that said “Remove visor before driving” DUH!!!
posted by Mom2boys on 9-29-2007 at 6:43 am
i always love how the tags on the cords of hair dryers warn you (with words or pictures) not to use in the bathtub
i know a hair dryer in water is very dangerous, but a) not only is this common sense & b) why in the world would you dry your hair while in the bathtub? maybe someone foolish could rationalize it, thinking itll save time – but it’s not like you can wash the rest of your body whilst drying your hair! you’d need 2 hands at some point of either action! … i understand the warning not to use the dryer NEAR a bathtub full of water, but i feel like it’s unnecessary to warn against using it while IN the tub!
@heather – that mapquest thing never ceases to crack me up!
posted by sd on 10-1-2007 at 12:59 pm
Greetings to all! The secret is out — this column (and subsequent posts) are exactly the reasons why I pursued a degree in Technical Writing. To be fair, not all manuals start out in Mandarin or Farsi. Many start out in engineer speak, developer speak, or, worse yet, business speak; these are worse since most of the writers believe that English (either American or UK) is their first language. Convincing them otherwise generally requires a dictionary the size of a small vehicle, as well as backup from a real Thesaurus and a good style guide. I generally recommend the Chicago Manual of Style, since it also is rather hefty. The heft of the support materials is actually quite important — if the eloquence of your argument doesn’t sway the miscreants, the volume can be utilized (an in joke for the tech writing audience) to deliver quite a nasty blow to scalp, fingers, or toes.
posted by Tech Writer Deb on 10-1-2007 at 1:55 pm