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SUNDAY MAY 13
Watch Your Language Burton recently pulled one of their stylish new t-shirts off the shelves. Seems the t-shirt was adorned, inadvertently, with a neo-Nazi, extreme right-wing slogan in Cyrillic. May 2007Said the t-shirt, which was on sale in the UK and online, "We will cleanse Russia of non-Russians!" A company spokesperson said Burton was told by the designers that the slogan was merely patriotic, and they pulled the shirt almost immediately. People familiar with the slogan and Russia opined that the slogan was so extreme that one could be arrested for wearing the t-shirt in the country. In honor of the gaffe, the Guardian also put together other famous and accidental linguistic slip-ups, including Coca-Cola's "It Adds Life," which, in Thai, translates to "Coke Brings Your Ancestors Back From The Dead." When Bristol university student Paddy Shuttleworth spotted an unassuming grey cotton T-shirt in his local Burton menswear shop, he was, to say the least, surprised; not by the price (a modest £12) but by the Cyrillic writing surrounding the doubleheaded eagle motif which, as a Russian language student, he was able to translate. Rather unfortunately, it read: "We will cleanse Russia of non-Russians!" "I did mention to the girl as I bought one of the shirts, that it was politically probably quite dangerous," says Mr Shuttleworth. The shirt's overall design is an odd jumble of ersatz French logo and Russian iconography, but there is no mistaking the nature of the sentiment, which uses the old word for Russia, "Rus" as a way of distinguishing between ethnic Russians and those with Russian citizenship. "I've spoken to a Russian friend," says Mr Shuttleworth, "and she said you would be arrested if you wore it in Russia." (Continue reading this story on The Guardian)
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