Between thieves, who profit from mistranslation, and fools, who know no better (and no profit), there lurks an intriguing class: lunatics, whose often considerable mind is whisked off to unexpected places by absurd fancies as to the nature of their task. The bigot Barnaby Rich writes in The Irish Hubbub (1617): And as the irish…
Colin‘s letter to the Galicians: Ten years or so ago, I sent a personal letter to the Director of the said Rías Baixas Tourist Board, offering to translate all their promotional material for nowt. I never even had the courtesy of a reply. But, anyway, here’s how their English material turned out, absent my help.…
Don Colin, who has more members than Lingual S&M, wonders whether this is de la abeja rodillas. Just out of interest, here’s the original 1st para: Se encuentra a pie mar, sobre una pequeña península y, durante el siglo I a.C., las gentes que lo habitaron vivían en unas 20 viviendas en forma circular dentro…
Via LS an anonymous cartoon of the gulf between what we (would like to) think we have said and what we (are understood to) have actually said: Why don’t we say what we think? Why do the inventors of magnificent flying machines gibber like madmen? Why, in our case, do excellent Spanish bars produce hilarious…
Here: A certain bishop, one of our brethren, having introduced in the church over which he presides the reading of your version, came upon a word in the book of the prophet Jonah, of which you have given a very different rendering from that which had been of old familiar to the senses and memory…
There is a long history of the cross-fertilisation of marine and ecclesiastical architecture, from Jesus’ boat-church on the Sea of Galilee (Mark 4:1: “And he began again to teach by the sea side: and there was gathered unto him a great multitude, so that he entered into a ship, and sat in the sea; and…
In an FT piece a couple of days ago (via) we learn that “As Benoy discovered to its cost, interpreters need to be close to the subject matter as well as competent linguistically”. I didn’t catch the Zapatero Snakeoil Show chez les Obama the other day, but I did see most of Hillary’s slot on…
