Fun_People Archive
24 Oct
Unfortunate Translations...

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From: Peter Langston <psl>
Date: Thu, 24 Oct 96 00:56:06 -0700
To: Fun_People
Subject: Unfortunate Translations...

Forwarded-by: Ninafel@aol.com
Forwarded-by:    Chibik

Dear friends,
I "owe" you all e-mail replies but am about to leave for a week in Vienna
and won't have the time to answer each of you as I'd like.  I'm back in
e-mail mode on Nov 1.  In the meantime:

An amusing true bad translation story.  An American friend went out for
sushi here in Paris with a Japanese friend and they were given "English"
menus.  One dish was FRIED PIMPS ON A STICK.  Baffled, my friend asked for
the French menu, where she saw BROCHETTE DE MAQUEREAU GRILLEES.  Or, 'fried
mackerel on a skewer'.  Maqueraux or "Mac" is indeed slang for "pimp" but
you have to ask yourself why they took the second definition in the
dictionary.

Yours, LISA

______________________________________________________________________________
Forwarded-by: <SCruzin@aol.com>

Here's one we saw on the wall of the men's room in one of the big hotels in
Japan:  "To stop drip, turn cock to right."


This sign was posted in a cocktail lounge in Norway, (from an exhibit on the
Worst Translations, sponsored by the European Community's translation
service):  "Ladies are requested not to have children at the bar."

© 1996 Peter Langston