[geeks] Phrasebooks

[Phil Stracchino]

Shannon Hendrix wrote:
> On Jan 1, 2008, at 12:23 AM, der Mouse wrote:
>>>> I once met a person who knew how to say "I am a pencil" in 18
>>>> languages.  [...]
>>> I have a list of "My god!  There's an axe in my head!" in 103
>>> languages.  I'm not certain which is the less useful of the two.  :)
>> In my father's family, there was a phrasebook which was (in)famous
>> because it included "Lo! Our postilion has been struck by lightning!".
> 
> This reminds me of all those funny computer mis-translations.
> 
> In our cognitive psychology classes, we used to use phrases to trip up  
> both computer and human translators.
> 
> Like: They hear bears bare their hair there.
> 
> Or: You go to the zoo too.
> 
> Some of the translations even by human translators were hilarious.

I recall a supposedly-true story about the first computer translation
link between the US and the Kremlin.  To test the system, the folks on
the US end sent the phrase "The spirit is willing, but the flesh is
weak."  It came back as "The vodka is good, but the meat is rotten."


-- 
  Phil Stracchino, CDK#2         ICBM: 43.5607, -71.355
  Renaissance Man, Unix ronin, Perl hacker, Free Stater
  alaric at caerllewys.net            alaric at metrocast.net
          It's not the years, it's the mileage.