[kj] Killing Language

Phillipps Marc gathering@misera.net
Thu, 27 Nov 2003 13:48:32 -0000


>One night we took sentences
>like "my hovercraft is full of eels" and went to =
babelfish.altavista.com
>and translated each of them to French and back like five times, then =
sent
>them to said French guy on ICQ.

Someone's taken the trouble out of this now and created Multibabel:

http://www.tashian.com/multibabel/

Throw in some KJ lyrics and see what happens ! :o)

(doesn't seem to be working too well at the moment though, probably =
this DNS
thing)


Marc.

> -----Original Message-----
> From:	Bo Krogsgaard [SMTP:t23@mother.brap.dk]
> Sent:	Thursday, November 27, 2003 1:31 PM
> To:	gathering@misera.net
> Subject:	Re: [kj] Killing Language
>=20
>=20
> On Thu, 27 Nov 2003, Gabriella Wing=E5rdh wrote:
>=20
> > (* Don=B4t know if you speak any Swedish, but let=B4s say "Twist =
and Shout"
> literally, would be something like "Skruva och skrik", which in =
English,
> translated back, could result in something like "Screw and Scream")
>=20
> My former roommate and i have this common friend who is French but =
has
> lived in Denmark for .. fifteen years maybe. One night we took =
sentences
> like "my hovercraft is full of eels" and went to =
babelfish.altavista.com
> and translated each of them to French and back like five times, then =
sent
> them to said French guy on ICQ.
>=20
> He really TRIED to understand what we were saying, until he figured =
out
> that my former roommate and i in the same room would mean we were =
stinking
> drunk and taking the piss out of him. Took him a while to figure out
> though. DAMNED i wish i had the logs of that night.
>=20
> On a WHOLE different note, a few of you maybe used BBS systems back =
in the
> old days with dialup modems. There was this quite good BBS software
> package called RemoteAccess, which was also one of the first BBS =
systems
> that shipped with menus in multiple languages.
>=20
> Whatever idiot translated it to Danish should be shot. He had =
consequently
> translated the word "thread" with the word for "threat", so it had =
the
> most violent message board system in BBS history ("previous message =
in
> threat, next threat, search for messages in threat, start new threat" =
and
> so on). And the Danish words ("tr=E5d" and "trussel") are so far from
> eachother that this cannot be a simple mistake, it's a proper fuckup.
>=20
>=20
> b
>=20
>=20
> _______________________________________________
> Gathering mailing list
> Gathering@misera.net
> http://four.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/gathering
>=20
>=20
This communication may contain information that is confidential and =
legally
privileged. It is for the exclusive use of the intended recipient(s). =
If you
are not the intended recipient(s), please note that any form of
distribution, copying or use of this communication or the information =
within
is strictly prohibited and may be unlawful. If you have received this
communication in error, please return it to the sender, then delete and
destroy any copies of it. The Health Informatics Service disclaims any
liability for action taken reliant on the content of this message. This
communication is from the Health Informatics Service serving Barnet =
Enfield
& Haringey Health Communities.