dmv wrote:

This 1883 book is without question the worst phrasebook ever written. The writer, Pedro Carolino, who was Portuguese, did not particularly speak English, nor did he have a Portuguese-English dictionary available. Instead, he worked with a French-English phrasebook and a Portuguese-French dictionary. The results, I'm sure you'll agree, are staggering.

Heh - this could have been written in 2005. Babblefish anyone?? :D

LB

Laughing Boy wrote:

dmv wrote:

This 1883 book is without question the worst phrasebook ever written. The writer, Pedro Carolino, who was Portuguese, did not particularly speak English, nor did he have a Portuguese-English dictionary available. Instead, he worked with a French-English phrasebook and a Portuguese-French dictionary. The results, I'm sure you'll agree, are staggering.

Heh - this could have been written in 2005. Babblefish anyone?? :D

LB

This reminds me of a Phillip K Dick book, Galactic Pot Healer[0], where the protagonist's primary activity in life was running various segments of literary works through multiple translators then back to english and trying to confuse his friends. It's funny how some things never change... I mean, who doesn't get a kick out of Babelfish's somewhat questionable translations?

[0] It was either that or Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said... I forget, I read them at the same time.

dmv wrote:

This 1883 book is without question the worst phrasebook ever written. The writer, Pedro Carolino, who was Portuguese, did not particularly speak English, nor did he have a Portuguese-English dictionary available. Instead, he worked with a French-English phrasebook and a Portuguese-French dictionary. The results, I'm sure you'll agree, are staggering.

Aaahrrrahgh! Having a flashback to when i had to do this SHITTY typesetting for a book in horrible broken english called ""America as I Saw It, and English as I Heard It There"