Translation bloopers
gathered from a variety of sources
by
Graham Davies
Contents
Translation bloopers gathered from a variety of sources by Graham Davies ............. 1
Contents ..................................................................................................................... 1
Some apocryphal stuff................................................................................................ 2
Online machine translators......................................................................................... 2
Bah, bah, black sheep, translated with Babel Fish ................................................. 2
Humpty Dumpty, translated with Babel Fish ........................................................... 2
Humpty Dumpty, translated with Google Translate................................................. 3
A business text, translated with Google Translate and Babel Fish ......................... 4
A journalistic text, translated with Google Translate and Babel Fish ...................... 4
Fun with machine translators .................................................................................. 4
Cuckoo clock assembly instructions ........................................................................... 5
A miscellany of mistranslations .................................................................................. 5
From a hotel in Budapest, which has its own dental surgery .................................. 8
Instructions on a paella pan .................................................................................... 8
Instructions on a lift in France ................................................................................. 9
Sign in Arizona ..................................................................................................... 10
From a pre-democratic report on journalism in East Germany ................................. 10
On a Hungarian menu .............................................................................................. 10
In a bathroom in a French hotel ............................................................................... 10
Humorous translations ............................................................................................. 11
Fractured French .................................................................................................. 11
Sky my husband! .................................................................................................. 11
The Madonna Interview ........................................................................................ 11
Gerard Hoffnung ................................................................................................... 13
Speech recognition................................................................................................... 13
Copyright .................................................................................................................. 13
1
Some apocryphal stuff
The following examples have often been cited as mistakes made by machine
translation (MT) systems. Whether they are real examples or not cannot be verified.
Russian-English: In a technical text that had been translated from Russian into
English the term water sheep kept appearing. When the Russian source text was
checked it was found that it was actually referring to a hydraulic ram.
Russian-English: Idioms are often a problem. It is claimed that the translation of the
spirit is willing but the flesh is weak into Russian ended up as the vodka is strong but
the meat is rotten – i.e. after translating the original into Russian and translating it
back into English.
Russian-English: Another example, similar to the one above, is where out of sight,
out of mind ended up being translated as the equivalent of blind and stupid.
All three of the above examples sound more like mistakes made by human beings –
or they may just have been invented in order to highlight the shortcomings of MT
systems. MT systems do, however, often make mistakes. The Systran MT system,
which has been used by the European Commission, translated the English phrase
pregnant women and children into des femmes et enfants enceints, which implies
that both the women and the children are pregnant. Although it is an interpretation of
the original phrase that is theoretically possible, it is also clearly wrong.
You can read more about MT systems in Section 3 of Module 3.5 at the ICT4LT
website: http://www.ict4lt.org/en/en_mod3-5.htm#machinetrans
Online machine translators
Try using an online machine translator to translate a text from English into another
language and then back again. The results are often amusing!
Bah, bah, black sheep, translated with Babel Fish
This is the result of translating Bah, bah, black sheep into French and then back
again into English, using Babel Fish: http://uk.babelfish.yahoo.com/
English source text:
Bah, bah, black sheep, have you any wool? Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full. One for
the master, one for the dame, and one for the little boy who lives down the lane.
French translation:
Bah, bah, mouton noir, vous ont n'importe quelles laines ? Oui monsieur, oui
monsieur, trois sacs complètement. Un pour le maître, un pour dame, et un pour le
petit garçon qui vit en bas de la ruelle.
And back into English again:
Bah, bah, black sheep, have you n' imports which wools? Yes Sir, yes Sir, three
bags completely. For the Master, for lady, and for the little boy who lives in bottom of
the lane.
Humpty Dumpty, translated with Babel Fish
This is the result of translating Humpty Dumpty into Italian and then back again into
English, using Babel Fish: http://uk.babelfish.yahoo.com/
2
English source text:
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall. Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. All the king’s horses
and all the king’s men couldn’t put Humpty together again.
Italian translation:
Humpty Dumpty si è seduto su una parete. Humpty Dumpty ha avuto una grande
caduta. I cavalli di tutto il re e gli uomini di tutto il re non hanno potuto un Humpty
ancora.
And back into English again:
Humpty Dumpty has been based on a wall. Humpty Dumpty has had a great fall. The
horses of all the king and the men of all the king have not been able a Humpty still.
Humpty Dumpty, translated with Google Translate
This is the result of translating Humpty Dumpty into Italian and then back again into
English, using Google Translate: http://translate.google.co.uk/
English source text:
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall. Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. All the king’s horses
and all the king’s men couldn’t put Humpty together again.
Italian translation:
Humpty Dumpty sedeva su un muro. Humpty Dumpty ha avuto un grande caduta.
Tutti i cavalli del re e tutti gli uomini del re non poteva mettere Humpty di nuovo
insieme.
And back into English again:
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall. Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. All the king's horses
and all the king's men could not put Humpty together again.
Now, this is an interesting result! Google Translate used to be a very unreliable MT
tool. It drives language teachers mad, as their students often use it to do their
homework, e.g. translating from a given text into a foreign language or drafting their
own compositions and then translating them. Mistakes made by Google Translate
used to be very easy to spot, but Google changed its translation engine a few years
ago and now uses a Statistical Machine Translation (SMT) approach. This
requires the use of large bilingual corpora which serve as input for a statistical
translation model. Essentially, Google Translate begins by examining and comparing
massive corpora of texts on the Web that have already been translated by human
beings. It looks for matches between source and target texts and uses complex
statistical analysis routines to look for statistically significant patterns, i.e. it works out
the rules of the interrelationships between source and target texts for itself. As more
and more corpora are added to the Web this means that Google Translate will keep
improving until it reaches a point where it will be very difficult to tell that a machine
has done the translation. The Humpty Dumpty translation back into English from the
Italian appears to indicate that Google Translate has matched the whole text and got
it right. Clever!
See this YouTube video, Inside Google Translate:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GdSC1Z1Kzs
3
A business text, translated with Google Translate and Babel Fish
I used Google Translate to translate the following text from German into English:
Die Handelskammer in Saarbrücken hat uns Ihre Anschrift zur Verfügung gestellt.
Wir sind ein mittelgroßes Fachgeschäft in Stuttgart, und wir spezialisieren uns auf
den Verkauf von Personalcomputern.
This was rendered as:
The Chamber of Commerce in Saarbrücken has provided us your address is
available. We are a medium sized shop in Stuttgart, and we specialize in sales of
personal computers.
OK, not perfect, but it’s intelligible. Babel Fish gave me a better version:
The Chamber of Commerce in Saarbruecken put your address to us at the disposal.
We are a medium sized specialist shop in Stuttgart, and we specialize in the sale of
personal computers.
A journalistic text, translated with Google Translate and Babel Fish
Die deutsche Exportwirtschaft kämpft mit der weltweiten Konjunkturflaute und muss
deshalb von den Zeiten zweistelligen Wachstums Abschied nehmen. [Ludolf
Wartenberg vom Bundesverband der Deutschen Industrie]
This was rendered by Google Translate as:
The German export economy is struggling with the global downturn and must
therefore take the times of double-digit growth goodbye. [Ludolf Wartenberg from the
Federation of German Industry]
Not perfect, but it’s intelligible, and better than the following version that Babel Fish
gave me – which failed to recognise that Ludolf Wartenberg is a proper name:
The German export trade and industry fights with the world-wide recession and must
take therefore from the times of two digit growth parting. [Ludolf waiting mountain of
the Federal association of the German industry.]
Fun with machine translators
This is what happens when an English sentence is translated by computer into and
from a sequence of different languages:
I typed:
Once upon a time there were three bears who lived in the middle of a deep, dark
forest.
The result was:
It was, was not seriously three bears, that one had deeply lived in the average the
one and sunk forest.
I typed:
Once upon a time there were three bears who lived in the middle of a deep, dark
forest.
The result was:
There are three striking Woods, deep in the dark, he resided.
4
Cuckoo clock assembly instructions
Some years ago I bought my mother-in-law a cuckoo clock in Germany. She could
not make sense of one of the English instructions for assembling and hanging the
clock. One sentence read: Put the clock to the head. On reading the original German
Stellen Sie die Uhr auf den Kopf, I was able to translate the sentence correctly as
Turn the clock upside down.
A miscellany of mistranslations
I found the following examples at this website:
Bloopers: Company Translations:
http://www.oocities.org/area51/zone/7474/blco.html
I have added a few of my own that I have found on my travels in Europe.
In Taiwan, the translation of the Pepsi slogan Come alive with the Pepsi Generation
came out in Chinese as Pepsi will bring your ancestors back from the grave.
When Parker Pen marketed a ballpoint pen in Mexico, its ads were supposed to say
It won't leak in your pocket and embarrass you. However, the company mistakenly
thought the Spanish word embarazar meant embarrass. Instead the ads said: It
won’t leak in your pocket and make you pregnant.
Chicken-man Frank Perdue's slogan sounds much more interesting in Spanish. It
takes a tough man to make a tender chicken got terribly mangled in Spanish
translation. A photo of Perdue with one of his birds appeared on billboards all over
Mexico with a caption that explained: It takes a hard man to make a chicken aroused
or It takes a sexually stimulated man to make a chicken affectionate.
Coors put its slogan, Turn it loose, into Spanish, where it was read as Suffer from
diarrhoea.
Scandinavian vacuum manufacturer Electrolux used the following in an American
campaign: Nothing sucks like an Electrolux.
When Braniff translated a slogan touting its upholstery, Fly in leather, it came out in
Spanish as Fly naked.
The Microsoft ad slogan, as translated into Japanese: If you don't know where you
want to go, we'll make sure you get taken. (No wonder Macs are the best selling
computer in Japan.)
Clairol introduced the Mist Stick, a hair curling iron, into German only to find out that
Mist is slang for (to put it delicately) manure. Not too many people had use for the
Manure Stick. This is the reason why Rolls Royce decided not to call one of its
models the Silver Mist, for fear of lost sales in the German-speaking world.
When Chevrolet developed the Chevy Nova, they decided to market it heavily in
Mexico, where the name translates as doesn't go. The car was later renamed
Caribe.
Ford had a similar problem in Brazil when the Pinto flopped. The company found out
that Pinto was Brazilian slang for tiny male genitals. Ford removed all the
nameplates and substituted Corcel, which means horse.
5
The American slogan for Salem cigarettes, Salem – Feeling Free, was translated
into the Japanese market as When smoking Salem, you will feel so refreshed that
your mind seems to be free and empty.
The German advertising office of Wang computers came up with the unfortunate
slogan Wang cares.
The name Coca-Cola in China was first rendered as something that when
pronounced sounded like Coca-Cola: Ke-kou-ke-la. Unfortunately, the Coke
company did not discover until after thousands of signs had been printed that the
characters used meant bite the wax tadpole or female horse stuffed with wax,
depending on the dialect. Coke then researched 40,000 Chinese characters and
found a close phonetic equivalent, Ko-kou-ko-le, which can be loosely translated as
happiness in the mouth.
Also in Chinese, the Kentucky Fried Chicken slogan finger-lickin' good came out as
eat your fingers off.
An American tee-shirt maker in Miami printed shirts for the Spanish market,
promoting the Pope's visit. Instead of the desired I saw the Pope (el Papa) the shirts
proclaimed in Spanish I saw the Potato (la Papa).
Hunt-Wesson introduced its Big John products in French Canada as Gros Jos before
finding out that the phrase, in slang, means big breasts. In this case, however, the
name problem did not have a noticeable effect on sales.
Colgate introduced a toothpaste in France called Cue, the name of a notorious porno
magazine.
In Italy, a campaign for Schweppes Tonic Water translated the name into
Schweppes Toilet Water.
Japan's second-largest tourist agency was mystified when it entered Englishspeaking markets and began receiving requests for unusual sex tours. Upon finding
out why, the owners of Kinki Nippon Tourist Company changed its name.
When Gerber started selling baby food in Africa, they used the same packaging as in
the US, with the beautiful baby on the label. Later they learned that in Africa,
companies routinely put pictures on the label of what's inside, since most people
can't read English.
A hotel in an Austrian ski resort requested guests not to perambulate the corridors in
the hours of repose in the boots of ascension.
A sign at a German campsite warned: It is strictly forbidden on our camp site that
people of different sex, for instance men and women, live together in one tent,
unless they are married with each other for that purpose.
A Zurich hotel with similar worries offered this solution: Because of the impropriety of
entertaining guests of the opposite sex in the bedroom, it is suggested that the lobby
be used for this purpose.
A notice in a Norwegian cocktail lounge stated: Ladies are requested not to have
children in the bar.
A Rome doctor specialized in women and other diseases, and a Swedish furrier
offered coats made for ladies from their own skin.
6
A Prague tourist agency urged tourists: Take one of our horse-driven city tours. We
guarantee no miscarriages.
In an Italian hotel: Fire! It is what can doing we hope. No fear. Not ourselves. Say
quietly to all people coming up down everywhere is a prayer. Always is a clerk. He is
assured of safety by expert men who are in the bar for telephone for the fighters of
fire come out.
A Paris hotel told its guests: Please leave your values at the desk.
In Paris, a boutique advertised dresses for street walking.
A tailor on the Greek island of Rhodes could not guarantee he could finish summer
suits ordered by tourists because is big rush we will execute customers in strict
rotation.
A sign in a zoo in Budapest showed that times are tough in Eastern Europe: Please
do not feed the animals. If you have any suitable food, give it to the guard on duty.
And if you thought flying was fun, go to the Copenhagen airport where an airline
vowed to take your bags and send them in all directions.
Sign in Prague museum: Please your luggage give to the wardrobe.
On a tap in a Finnish toilet: To stop the drip, turn cock to right.
In the window of a Swedish furrier: Fur coats made for the ladies from their own skin.
From an Italian menu: Offering my honored guests delicious meals is my endeavor.
Every readiness and efficiency to obtain this target is essential. Kindly assist me in
this task by taking at least one meal at my place where my specialty is pig.
From a pre-democratic Hungarian sporting event: Sports in the rotting capitalist
countries are the declared enemy of the Socialist Athletes who consider it their duty
to worth the superiority of the Socialist races.
A Russian chess book: A lot of water has been passed under the bridge since this
variation has been played.
Menu items from a Spanish restaurant:
Sucklings pork
Kind size deal chop
Lopster and rape kebabs
Chesse
On an Italian menu:
Pasta with *voracious* clams (vongole veraci)
Spaghetti with tomato sauce and *pillow* (spaghetti all'amatriciana, con pomodoro e
guanciale)
On a Soviet ship in the Black Sea:
Helpsavering apparata in emergings behold many whistles! Associate the stringing
apparata about the bosoms and meet behind. Flee then to the indifferent lifesavering
shippen obediencing the instructs of the vessel chef.
A company that makes packaging machinery had a manual translated into Italian.
Their Italian customer called them up a few weeks later, very perplexed: apparently,
7
this machine had a mysterious button which, when pressed, got the machine
pregnant! (alla pressione del pulsante x, la macchina si mette in attesa = enters
stand-by mode).
A 1993 tourist brochure on the Czech city of Marianske Lazne has a system of
symbols meant to show what conveniences each hotel features. One of them is a
snowflake, which in the key is said to designate in Czech lednice na pokojich (i.e.
refrigerator in each room). In English this is translated as reefer in the room. In
German it is Seemannsjacke. The same translator did both the English and German.
Apparently unaware that reefer generally refers to a marijuana cigarette (and
sometimes to a huge refrigerated trailer), he used this word, then looked up its
meaning in a German, where the definition corresponded to a further meaning of
reefer, which is a type of sailor’s jacket.
A few years ago, Bologna had the statue of Neptune restored. You could visit the
place where the work was being done, and pamphlets were available that explained
about the project. A Canadian client picked up the one in English, and after reading it
briefly said that Bologna must have a high mortality rate. Reason: the project was
described as being financed by the Bologna Association of Undertakers!
(Associazione degli Imprenditori di Bologna).
The English menu of the Czech restaurant U dvou kocek (Sign of the Two Cats,
loosely translated) offers diners goulash two cats and fried dope. The waiter claimed
the two-cats goulash is made of dog meat.
A translator was contacted by a local manufacturing company (in Italy) who wanted
to know why their American sister-firm had sent back their translation of a kit for a
piece of furniture, refusing to publish it. The text contained the delightful message:
Open the legs and screw as hard as possible – grammatically faultless, but
expressing advice far beyond the normal confines of chairs and tables.
Then, there's the funny spring chicken that was rendered into French as poulet à
ressorts (literally a chicken with springs).
From a hotel in Budapest, which has its own dental surgery
The most modern supplied dental department is available for guests and tourists of
the hotel as for the patients coming to a treatment of out-patients.
At technical manufacturing of crones, bridges and protheses will be used material
and technology of firms on world-range.
Dental corrections: These corrections occure – at children till the age of 18 without
any pain - by the most modern knowledges.
Implantation: The dental implantation is a modern process for replacement of missed
teeth. The dental implantation solves a lot of problems in connection with the
removable protheses. Our dental surgery uses the most modern americal methods.
Instructions on a paella pan
Instructions to cook one "Paella":
The following articles are required:
Olive oil: 45 grames by person.
8
Rice 100 grames by person.
Flesh meat Of chicken, rabbit, duck, pig, etc., what one wishes. Instead of flesh
meat, it may be also cooked with shell-fish.
Culinary vegetables. Peas, artichokes, green beans, according to consumer taste.
Dry beans may be put too, but they shall be boied, looking to, they be pouret into the
frying pan with the rice together. With someone of these culinary vegetables only, it
may be cooked.
Water It must reach a level up of one centimetre of the frying-pan border with the
supject, it be not poured out to boil.
Seasoning Saffron, large pepper, salt, all as consumer taste.
Cooking process:
The flesh meat will be cut in pieces of an approximate egg's size. Olive oils is put
into the frying-pan in the aforementioned quantity and when it is very warm, the flesh
meat is thrown, being fried slightly until it shows a gilt colour. Small pieces of ripe
tomato and one little spoon of grinded large pepper will be added, and all this be
turned upside down into the frying-pan. At once, it is added the desired culinary
vegetables and the water. Salt at will. The fire is vivified until the culinary vegetables
and the flesh meat may be well cooked, without it leaves one moment to boil. If it
wants more water, this must be warm.
Once all well cooked, the rice is added in the quantity mentioned, procuring it be well
distributed throughout the frying-pan. The fire is vivified again until the rice be half
cooked. Since this moment, the fire is gradually taken away to leave it at a half
ebullition until it be cooked. When the frying-pan is put away from the fire, it is leaved
some minutes to rest before serving at the table.
Instructions on a lift in France
Instructions to users of the ascenseur:
Persons ignorant of the manoeuvres of the ascenseur are prayed instantly to
address themselves to the concierge.
Never attempt to mount in the ascenseur nor to get out before having constated the
absolute arrest of the cabine. If the cabine is in march or stopped at a stage, be
certain that the people who are found there have quitted it. Once in the cabine, shut,
with care, all the portals, then command the manoeuvres by leaning on the button of
the stage where one want to render oneself and eventually on the button of
mounting.
In the course of the route, never touch the portals of the cabine. Their overture can
provoke the arrest of the cabine. One must, if the cabine produces itself by mistake
or inattention, reclose with pain the open portals and command anew the
manoeuvres like at the departure.
In case of tempestuous stop in course of the march, open the portals and close at
once, and command descent by leaning on the button and eventually, on the button
of descent.
To move the cabine, push button of wishing floor.
9
If the cabine should enter more persons, each one should press number of wishing
floor.
Button retaining a pressed position shows received command for visiting starter.
The ascensceur is being fixed for the next days. During that time we regret that you
will be unbearable.
Sign in Arizona
This was photographed by an Arizona driver on a trip to Mexico. The text is
reproduced here exactly as written on the sign:
MR. TOURIST:
THE COOPERATIVE OF PRODUCTION FISHERY AND TOURIST; (PEDRO EL
PESCADOR) AUTORIZE FOR THE SECRETARIE OF THE FISHE AND TOURIST
IN THE SONORA OF STATE. TO INVITE WITH VISITED AND THE CAPTURE TO
ANGOSTURA WITH END PROPORTIONAL A GOOD SERVICE TO RECOVER A
QUOTA A DAY FOR A PERSON TO PROTECCION OF THE TOURIST AND
OURSELVES. RECOMENDATE OF FORM YOUR FAVOUR CANE HAVE AND
HELP OF PROTECCION OF NETS, WITH INSTALATION THIS SING WITH
SUBMERGED.
SICERLY THE DIRECTIVE.
From a pre-democratic report on journalism in East
Germany
East German journalists were praised for their ability to provide their readers with
parteiliche Informationen (i.e. information concerning party political affairs). In
English this became partial information – not quite what was intended.
On a Hungarian menu
Strong soup with added materials.
I checked this out with a Hungarian colleague. The phrase that has been translated
as strong soup in Hungarian is made up in a similar way to the equivalent in
German, i.e. Kraftbrühe = consommé. The phrase added materials refers to those
bits and pieces that often float around in a consommé and which I can never
translate properly, e.g. as in Kraftbrühe mit Einlage. The Hungarian follows the
German quite closely.
In a bathroom in a French hotel
A friend of mine was puzzled by a notice in the bathroom of a hotel in France, which
instructed her to put her briefcases on the floor if they needed washing. I’m not sure
if this is a machine translation or human error. The word serviette in French can
mean briefcase or towel, depending on the context!
10
Humorous translations
Fractured French
The following translations are what I vaguely remember from a book called Fractured
French, published by R. Denison, New York: Permabooks, 1956.
Châteaubriand = Your hat is on fire.
Coup de grâce = lawnmower.
Tant pis, tant mieux = My aunt is feeling much better since she has been to the toilet.
Sky my husband!
Sky my husband (Ciel, mon mari!) is a book by Jean-Loup Sifflet (John WolfWhistle), containing (deliberately) mistranslated idioms. Published by Editions
Hermé, 1985. This is a very amusing book and well worth a read if you are looking
for examples of idioms that need to be very carefully translated! For example:
J’ai tout lieu de croire que c’est une grosse légume qui a une langue bien pendue et
qui tient le haut du pavé en s’en mettant plein la lampe.
This becomes:
I have all place to believe that he is a big vegetable who has a well hanged tongue
and who holds the high of the pavement in filling plenty his lamp.
A freer and more accurate rendering is:
Everything leads me to believe that he is a person who is full of his own importance,
who talks too much and lords it over others while stuffing his face.
The Madonna Interview
This is an article by Garry Trudeau, which appeared in Time, 20 May 1996, p. 92:
ESSAY: I Am a Tip-Top Starlet
In which something is lost, but much is gained, in the translation
When the huge Evita production company blew into Budapest last month to rent its
ancient architecture, Madonna, the film’s star, was much too busy staying in
character to meet with the local press. Finally, on the eve of her departure, good
manners prevailed, and the pop diva submitted to an interview with the Budapest
newspaper Blikk. The questions were posed in Hungarian, then translated into
English for Madonna, whose replies were then translated back into Hungarian for the
paper's exclusive. Shortly thereafter, at the request of USA Today, Madonna's
comments were then retranslated from Hungarian back into English for the benefit of
that paper's readers. To say that something was lost in the process is to be wildly
ungrateful for all that was gained. “I am a woman and not a test-mouse!” reads a
typical quote. USA Today, presumably pressed for space, published only a few of
these gems, leaving the rest to the imagination, whence has sprung the following
complete transcript:
Blikk: Madonna, Budapest says hello with arms that are spread-eagled. Did you
have a visit here that was agreeable? Are you in good odor? You are the biggest fan
of our young people who hear your musical productions and like to move their bodies
in response.
11
Madonna: Thank you for saying these compliments [holds up hands]. Please stop
with taking sensationalist photographs until I have removed my garments for all to
see [laughs]. This is a joke I have made.
Blikk: Madonna, let’s cut toward the hunt: Are you a bold hussy-woman that feasts
on men who are tops?
Madonna: Yes, yes, this is certainly something that brings to the surface my
longings. In America it is not considered to be mentally ill when a woman advances
on her prey in a discothèque setting with hardy cocktails present. And there is a
more normal attitude toward leather play-toys that also makes my day.
Blikk: Is this how you met Carlos, your love-servant who is reputed? Did you know
he was heaven-sent right off the stick? Or were you dating many other people in
your bed at the same time?
Madonna: No, he was the only one I was dating in my bed then, so it is a scientific
fact that the baby was made in my womb using him. But as regards these questions,
enough! I am a woman and not a test-mouse! Carlos is an everyday person who is in
the orbit of a star who is being muscle-trained by him, not a sex machine.
Blikk: May we talk about your other “baby”, your movie, then? Please do not be
denying that the similarities between you and the real Evita are grounded in basis.
Power, money, tasty food, Grammys – all these elements are afoot.
Madonna: What is up in the air with you? Evita never was winning a Grammy!
Blikk: Perhaps not. But as to your film, in trying to bring your reputation along a
rocky road, can you make people forget the bad explosions of Who's That Girl? and
Shanghai Surprise?
Madonna: I am a tip-top starlet. That is my job that I am paid to do.
Blikk: O.K., here's a question from left space: What was your book Slut about?
Madonna: It was called Sex, my book.
Blikk: Not in Hungary. Here it was called Slut. How did it come to publish? Were you
lovemaking with a man-about-town printer? Do you prefer making suggestive
literature to fast-selling CDs?
Madonna: These are different facets to my career highway. I am preferring only to
become respected all over the map as a 100% artist.
Blikk: There is much interest in you from this geographic region, so I must ask this
final questions: How many Hungarian men have you dated in bed? Are they No. 1?
How are they comparing to Argentine men, who are famous for being tip-top as well?
Madonna: Well, to avoid aggravating global tension, I would say it's a tie [laughs].
No, no, I am serious now. See here, I am working like a canine all the way around
the clock! I have been too busy even to try the goulash that makes your country one
for the record books.
Blikk: Thank you for your candid chitchat.
Madonna: No problem, friend who is a girl.
12
Gerard Hoffnung
The British humorist Gerard Hoffnung (1925–1959) gave the following examples of
extracts from letters from Tyrolean landlords in answer to holiday enquiries. They are
even funnier when you listen to this recording of him addressing the Oxford Union in
1958: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iHCMwA7n7I
We have ample garage accommodation for your char.
In the close village you can buy jolly memorials for when you pass away.
I send you my prices. If I am dear to you and your mistress she might perhaps be
reduced.
We are also noted for having children.
Dear Madam (supposedly to his wife), I am honourable to accept your impossible
request. Unhappy it is, I here have not bedroom with bath. A bathroom with bed I
have. I can, though, give you a washing, with pleasure, in a most clean spring with
no one to see. I insist that you will like this.
Honoured (supposedly to himself), I am amazing diverted by your entreaty for a
room. I can offer you a commodious chamber with balcony imminent to the romantic
gorge, and I hope you would want to drop in. A vivacious stream washes my
doorsteps, so do not concern yourself that I am not too good in bath, I am superb in
bed. Sorrowfully, I cannot abide your auto. Having freshly taken over the propriety of
this notorious house, I am wishful that you remove to me your esteemed costume.
Standing among savage scenery, the hotel offers stupendous revelations. There is a
French widow in every bedroom, affording delightful prospects. I give personal look
to the interior wants of each guests. Here, you shall be well fed-up and agreeably
drunk. Our charges for weekly visitors are scarcely creditable. Peculiar
arrangements for gross parties, our motto is "ever serve you right!"
Speech recognition
Finally, there is speech recognition. Research into speech recognition has been
taking place as long as I can remember – and I first got interested in ICT and
languages back in 1976. One of the earliest examples I recall – which may be
apocryphal – is the sentence This new display can recognise speech being rendered
by an automatic device as This nudist play can wreck a nice beach.
You can read more about speech technologies in Section 3 of Module 3.5 at the
ICT4LT website: http://www.ict4lt.org/en/en_mod3-5.htm#speechtech
Copyright
© Graham Davies 2012 under a under a
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
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