This is Stronzo Bestiale, the fictitious Italian physicist, author of numerous peer-reviewed scientific papers. However, stronzo bestiale surely isn’t total asshole – that’s stronzo totale, which I think entered the Italian language via translations of American airport lit – but rather bestial arsehole, or monstrous arsehole, concepts much less sanitised and more evocative of our…
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…
The Daily Mail and Tesco and various translation pundits just booked themselves into the nether stretches of the intestines of linguistic hell. From the Mule: I’m not hungry, thanks! Tesco brands Finest spaghetti bolognese ‘the balls of grandad’ Packaging features signs from an Italian market advertising ‘Le Palle de Nonno’ and ‘Coglioni di Mulo’ They…
Can someone work out from this steaming pool of verbal diarrhea if they’re loading the donkey down with GPS recorders etc and then letting it go wherever it wants? Now that would be really interesting. Er, not, actually. [Whatever happened to Deirdre (?) and the donkey and cart with which she made her way from…
Has got to be in there somewhere: Lyrics: Suck a polar bear’s funky ass! Suck a racehorse’s cock with Heinz Tomato Ketchup! Suck a donkey’s shitty ass! Suck a male camel’s dick with Hoisin sauce! Suck a cheetah’s dick Suck a cheetah’s dick Suck a cheetah’s dick Suck a cheetah’s dick Suck a European bison’s…
Once upon a time Pere Quart (Joan Oliver to his friends) composed some often wickedly funny verses that were published with drawings by Xavier Nogués under the title Bestiari in Barcelona in 1937. His treatise on the camel and the dromedary is reminiscent of one by Ogden Nash that I blogged into melodious Catalan a…
