The "Funny Translation" Blog for all Languages & Cultures!!

<we all realize that for example that England and the USA are two countries, separated by a common language>

It's a bit closer to home than that. England and Scotland are two countries divided by a common language....

I'll second that ...

Our family moved to Fife (in Scotland) from the north London area when I was 14. As the only pupil in a school of 1500 with an English accent, I had to learn quickly!

I'll never forget the bewildered expression on my Mother's face one day a few months after we'd moved. On a (very rare) hot, dry & sunny day, there was a street-sweeper passing, plying his broom to the accumulated debris in the gullies.

Me: "'sanawfy stoor afae thon, ano?"

Sweeper: "Aye, 'sa sair fecht, ano?"

(Trans (loosely):

Me: "Theres an awful lot of dust coming from that, isn't there?"

Sweeper: "Yes, it's horrible, isn't it?")

(BTW - 'Aye' was the only word the spell-checker didn't object to)

I've borrowed ER's pedant hat. Scotland is not exactly part of the United Kingdom. That big valley that encloses loch Ness ? Well Scotland bashed into us some millennia ago ( OK, It may have been the other way round). It's not a rift valley like in S Africa, they bloody invaded ! Our separation from the French was somewhat more recent ( not that I'm laughing or anything , some idiot built a hole.)

As an initial contribute, you can't ****** beat this ; http://www.youswear.com/index.asp?language=German

(set to German out of respect to Andy for starting this one. It's fully adjustable.)

What about French?

I would think a common English saying must be difficult for a foreigner to understand such as:

"Break a leg!" in English means good luck.... but I wonder how many times a foreigner must have thought it was an insult!!!

Funnily, I had one similarly misunderstood from an Italian ebay buyer who emailed me with something totally nothing to do with anything !! I had to ask on the ebay forums for any help in deciphering it and Yes it really meant the same, "Good luck" but it read as a sort of insult to me!!

John.

<"Break a leg!" in English means good luck.... but I wonder how many times a foreigner must have thought it was an insult!!!>

This style of sentiment originates from practices in the theatre, where it is considered a bad omen to wish a performer the more-appropriate 'good luck' style of sentiment before going on stage.

To be more precise <removes pedant's hat from Kris's paws> "Break A Leg" is actually a term of good luck.

The leg in question is not part of the actor's body, but part of the mechanism that raises and lowers the curtain, particulalry in a prosenium arch theatre. As we all know, excessive use of something can cause it to wear out - so when the phrase "break a leg" is used in theatre, it's actually shorthand for "may your performance be so good that you have so many curtain calls* that the mechanism which raises and lowers the curtain fails through overuse".

Break a leg is soo much quicker to say!

*Curtain Call: the raising and lowering of the curtain during the audience's applause - the more of these there are, the more the audience liken the performance.

A constant source of Anglo German problems is the word "Gift", in German it means poison! After the second World War was over, many Germans thought England and the USA were trying to kill them off with their "Gift" parcels!!!!

The word "Spanner" (or wrench in American) in German is a "Peeping Tom", at least that one causes a few laughs as in "Pass me the Peeping Tom!!"

<The word "Spanner" (or wrench in American) in German is a "Peeping Tom", at least that one causes a few laughs as in "Pass me the Peeping Tom!!">

An adjustable wrench is:

• An 'adjustable spanner'
• An 'adjustable wrench'
• A 'fitsall' ["fits all" nuts]
• A 'shifter' [Chemical manufacturing - it shifts anything]
• An 'AFS' ["any f.... size"]

depending on the industry, never mind the country!

Oh, deep joy! This thread could go anywhere (except into Kris' old bath.... ) !

Many thanks, I can see that you are going to be a very invaluable contributor here....

Lets see if we can exceed the "Bath Blog" number of posts!!!

Maybe we should persuade "the team" to cut out the current spellcheck, to stop all the UK/US english fuss, and substitute this one

An adjustable wrench is:..........

In the US, commonly known as a(an):

• Crescent Wrench.
• all sixteenths. (Not sure what the metric version would be. All mm?)

(Not sure what the metric version would be. All mm?)

metric adjustable

A great newbie mechanic minimum IQ test.

I would be working a metric machine & ask for a cresent wrench.

upon receiving the tool, proclaim loudly No NO I need a metric one. I can only remember 1 time where the victim actually noticed that the handle is marked for the span in inches on 1 side & milimeters[MM] on the other.

One poor chap I once sent out is still probably looking for a 'left-handed' spanner. I am still looking for some brand of constructional fibre by the brand name 'moral' .

I remember the days of sending the newbie to the stores to get some sparks for the grinder or to get the long weight (wait)! Then there was the skirting-board ladder and the sky hook which every self respecting electrician would have stowed in the van ready to be fetched by the newbie! Being honest, I got tricked into the long wait to the amusement of all on the shop floor!

& of course, no one who works on anything that runs on electricity, should ever be w/out extra cans of smoke. Because after all that's why things stop working.

All the smoke came out.

I use these

It's just so hard to get the end plates back on after you've refilled the windings!

Guess I better go break a little tub

Don't laugh, I used to own one of those(and maybe still do - somewhere in one of the toolboxes)....(adjustable wrench with metric markings alongside the jaws).

The confused look on my buddies' faces when I asked for my metric adjustable was priceless

Damn....should have read the rest of the replies before putting my own

Oh well...I guess we all like the practical jokes (until we are the butt of them, that is...)

The recommendation for using a spelling checker is praiseworthy (English pyjamas vs. US pajamas) but what about syntax and punctuation?

Andy Germany's first paragraph includes:

wrong 'we' instead of 'We'

wrong 'language.(to'

wrong 'of!).'

wrong 'of' at the end of a sentence, which should not end with a preposition.

Yes, I realize (realise) that I'm being pedantic and hyperconventional, but spelling. grammar, syntax and usage are all conventions that help unambiguous communication and should be judiciously used and not abused.

This is true, but where there are so many people from different backgrounds here it may be quite difficult for all of them to use proper English punctuation since in languages like German there are such oddities as transposed word order and things like that. I think--for the most part-- that we can decipher the meanings from most of the posters, although it would be much easier if everyone had perfect grammer I don't think I've met anyone in the US that does (apart from English teachers).

I forgot to log in!

"but spelling. grammar, syntax and usage. . ."

"The boy is about as sharp as a bag of wet mice." Foghorn Leghorn.

"Not the sharpest mouse in the bag." My buddy Chad.

"As dumb as a bag full of hammers" said George Clooney's character in the movie "Oh Brother Where Art Thou".

Language comes into this again, I am Dutch and the said expression is badly translated (by me)

Funny here is not the "funny" you can laugh at, I meant the funny as in "that is ridiculous!" funny which is more like the dense you pointed out.

No doubt it has a common origin, lots of these did and became twisted by interpretations due to language barriers.

Language has always bothered, sorry I meant interested, me and I have a few from Dutch / English I will share here later.

That is like the common saying," as dumb as a box of rocks", which you hear quite frequently on television in reference to dumb reality show women. I am not sure why I do not seem to hear it applied more frequently tomen, there is no reason for the current differentiation in use. My grandparents use that statement, as do many older persons, across the board. (of course there are a lot of Paris Hiltons out there on reality TV, so..)

I like to use "If his I.Q. was 2 points higher, he would be a napkin." Got that from an old National Lampoon comedy album. Of course, that's the American napkin. I believe the Brit napkin has a somewhat more southernly meaning? Or is that Aussie? Damn, that's 3 countries divided by a common language!

I was in Worcester Shire about 2.5 years ago and fell in to a romantic involvement with a wonderful cider.

Scrumpy Jack is the shiznit as far as I am concerned.

Translation Shiznit-- Rap slang meaning To be the top of the line, the best.

Thats good to hear.

Please spell "Worcester Shire" as "Worcestershire", it looks far better that way......!

What's in HP sauce anyway?

• Water
• Vinegar
• Dates
• Glucose-Fructose
• Black Strap Molasses
• Tomato Paste
• Modified Cornstarch
• Salt
• Orange Juice Concentrate
• Onion
• Spices
• Tamarind Extract
• Apple Juice Concentrate
• Garlic
• Chili Peppers
• Mustard Flour

I use the spell checker on most posts, it uses US spelling, but that is not a problem for me as most non English first language people will probably recognize the US version better anyway......

Sadly it does not correct my grammar failures after living abroad so many years.....!

I try and do my best!!

English is my mother tongue, I learnt French at school and spoke it reasonably well till the mid 70's, sadly its got very rusty, as has my Portuguese, learnt while in the Navy, I started to learn German at 35 (much too late), never had time to study it as well as I should have, still have a slight British accent....but if I lost it completely, nobody would know that I am British!!

I can accept critic about my Grammar and spelling, it is not as good as it should be, but I have learnt a total of four languages and I could also make myself understood in Afrikaans and Cantonese years ago, so before you criticise me too much, how many languages have you managed to learn up to now????

My post was not critique. I meant to point out that spell-checking, which you recommended, is not a cure-all. It would not, for instance, recognise 'bed' written instead of 'bad' because both words have a meaning and the usual spell checker does not look at the context in which words are embedded. MS Word also has a syntax checker (mistakes in green) which may fruitfully be consulted to check for capital letters and such like, but it is primitive and should definitely not be blindly followed.

Most people born into a language can easily recognise mistakes made by late learners without being able to explain how they do it. In the early days of machine translation there were many jokes about computers not really understanding what they were translating. For instance, a computer is asked to translate 'The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak' into Russian and then translate the Russian translation back into English. It comes up with 'The Vodka is good but the meat stinks'.

The main problem in badly spelled posts is not ignorance or non-English-speakers who know only technical words in English taken from brochures and manuals and have not absorbed the way these words should be strung together. I think we should gladly accept such posts and we seem to do so. But! SMSese written by native English speakers is probably useful in cellular phone messages, not here. u dnt thnk?

To answer your question. I can speak read and write 2 languages (correctly), read (reasonably well) and speak (not too well) 2 more, read (with difficulty) and speak (not well at all) 2 more, read signs and ask my way in 2 more. Is that more or less? But that's not fair because I'm much older...

If thats what you originally meant to say I'm fine with that, that was not what came over, so read it again, it comes over as a small minded "picky" type who only criticises......

Its better to read through what you write and try to be a different pair of eyes when so doing.

If you are older than I, then you are VERY old indeed.......!

What comes over is the responsibility of partly the writer and partly the reader. Text can be badly written and/or badly read.

Previewing comment before it is submitted is a very good idea (not too often done) perhaps because it jeopardises the race towards guru-hood.

True, I am 'very old indeed', which may help experience and judgement. It does not help memory but it does add to the amount of useful and useless information accumulated.

You, I seem to remember, are 57?

Without wanting to get caught in cross-fire, Andy appears to be 5. Respect to you Andy for that. I am a rather pathetic 1. A certain Cat ( who I will no longer mention ) is bloody 12 *! I like you too dovy, so we can all be friends ( apart from the Cat !).

*OK Del, I like you really.

No real danger Kris, after all them's not guns shootin', them's just tongues waggin'.

What's better: 1000 words each in 3 languages or 1500 words each in 2 languages?

Many years ago, Ogden & ? invented BASIC English where BASIC stood (if I still remember) for British American Scientific Inter Communication. They claimed that most needs can be covered using just 1000 words. There were some hilarious translations of Shakespeare (who could not or would not spell, not even his own surname...) and others.

I only just found out that this bunch are American ; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reduced_Shakespeare_Company

It never stops making me smile when the slightest chat on CR4 can end up with more knowledge. This Shakespearian one may not be especially useful, but it makes me smile all the same. I''m not sure about Ogden etc, but my own proclivities are fully owned up to before. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QBasic .It has something of a 'nerd' following on the net.

Poor shortened 'Ham.

That small language is in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_English.

It seems that I'm not nerd enough to like QBasic but modern Power Basic is a good language, quite useful for communication programming.