Dumbassery

The following t-shirt was on display at Jasmine Sola, a trendy boutique in Harvard Square:

The words mean “friendly for the devil.” If I were generous, I might translate them to “friendly on behalf of the devil” and interpret them to mean that the wearer is acting nice to promote the interests of Satan– “Hi, I’m Satan’s PR agent.” But I’m not generous.

I’ve seen western misuse of eastern languages on Hanzi Smatter and eastern misuse of western languages on Engrish. But I’ve rarely seen someone try to be cool by using Spanish in a gothic font to look like some kind of cholo badass.

PS, while searching for “cholo” links I found Han Cholo and his store. Not sure what to say about that.

PPS, update 7PM: The point of this post is that the word for “sympathy” in Spanish is not “simpatico” but “condolencia” and that this shirt is a mis-translation of the English phrase “Sympathy for the Devil.”