海角大神

In Paris, I discovered that my daughter had lice. I had never dealt with this before, so I ran to a nearby pharmacy for help. I explained in my best French, 鈥�Ma fille a des insectes aux chevaux!鈥� The pharmacist nodded and calmly handed me a comb, even though I had actually said that my daughter had bugs in her horses. I had confused two similar French words, chevaux (鈥渉orses鈥�) and cheveux (鈥渉air鈥�). This is known as a 鈥渢ranslation fail,鈥� and I love to read the ones that people post on the internet.聽 聽

Translation fails predate the internet, of course. When I was growing up, one of my favorite books was Richard Lederer鈥檚 鈥淎nguished English: An Anthology of Accidental Assaults Upon Our Language.鈥� It鈥檚 a collection of language errors of all kinds: malapropisms (鈥淎crimony is what a divorced man pays his wife鈥�), infelicitous phrasing (鈥淚n 鈥楾he Glass Menagerie,鈥� Laura鈥檚 leg keeps coming between her and other people鈥�), and some of the best translation mishaps ever recorded. Dr. Lederer relates that a Japanese car rental firm told its English-speaking customers, 鈥淲hen passenger of foot heave in sight, tootle the horn. Trumpet him melodiously at first, but if he still obstacles your passage then tootle him with vigor.鈥�

The internet was made for translation fails. Countless websites and blogs collect them from restaurant menus, T-shirt slogans, and instructions for tourists around the world. Sometimes it鈥檚 easy to see where the mistake was made. A buffet in Venezuela was serving a smooth vegetable soup, crema de verdura (鈥渃ream of vegetables鈥� in Spanish). This delicious dish was labeled 鈥淚t cremates of greenness鈥� in English, and something approximating 鈥淚t incinerates immaturity鈥� in German. In Spanish, crema means both 鈥渃ream soup鈥� and 鈥渃remate,鈥� while verdura is both 鈥渧egetables鈥� and 鈥済reenness,鈥� a synonym for 鈥渋mmaturity.鈥�

A T-shirt in Taiwan had a picture of a happy puffer fish above some English text: 鈥淔ish should live in tresh water soud as ocean flver lake on ocean. People should ... eabance the fish and wildnle and their babitacs.鈥� 鈥淭resh鈥� must be 鈥渇resh鈥� as in 鈥渃lean,鈥� but what is 鈥渂abitacs鈥�? Babies? Habitats? Some kind of combination? At any rate, it鈥檚 a well-meaning, if slightly incomprehensible, environmental message.聽 聽

While 鈥渢ranslation fail鈥� is a catchy way to describe these funny mistakes, they are actually far from failures. Though they are infelicitous or ungrammatical, they demonstrate attempts to bridge a gap, to communicate with others even if it means going outside one鈥檚 linguistic comfort zone. These are translation successes, even when they鈥檙e not quite perfect.聽