[HN Gopher] English as She Is Spoke (1884) [pdf]
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English as She Is Spoke (1884) [pdf]
Author : lelf
Score : 109 points
Date : 2023-01-02 18:44 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.exclassics.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.exclassics.com)
| asveikau wrote:
| I think this highlights some differences between now and the 19th
| century.
|
| Global communication and travel, to say nothing of media
| consumption, is much easier today. Many more Portuguese or
| Brazilian people have easy access to English. But back then,
| someone who didn't even speak English could publish this phrase
| book and appear credible.
| bonzini wrote:
| There are still plenty of topics in which one can "appear
| credible"--and given chatGPT's skill in bullshitting about
| various topics, it's easier than ever.
| marc_abonce wrote:
| This kind of thing still happens today. For example this
| reminded me of the Scots Wikipedia story, which took many years
| before being discovered:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24273851
| [deleted]
| dang wrote:
| A cartoon I saw years ago shows two men sitting at a table in a
| cafe. There's a book or two on the table. One says to the other:
| "Why you be not happy with me as translator of books by you?"
| srl wrote:
| It seems likely that this is the cartoon, but I can't figure
| out what the original source is:
| https://www.jokejive.com/images/jokejive/23/23a74af0b0d51ee4...
| sogen wrote:
| Galactic Pot Healer by Philip K. Dick has some examples of this
| too
| dwighttk wrote:
| My postilion has been struck by lightning
| angry_moose wrote:
| Omnibus Podcast (Ken Jennings and John Roderick) did a good
| episode about it as well:
|
| https://www.omnibusproject.com/340
| dang wrote:
| The _Idiotisms and Proverbs_ section is one of the more hilarious
| and I wonder how many of them can be mapped back to originals.
| The only one I could trace is _A horse baared don 't look him the
| tooth_, which presumably maps back to _Don 't look a gift horse
| in the mouth_.
|
| Probably quite a few of them are no longer common in English
| either by now, which makes computing the inverse harder.
| kgeist wrote:
| I could decode these, because there are equivalents in my
| native Russian:
|
| >"With tongue one go to Roma"
|
| = you can achieve anything with good communication skills
|
| >"It want to beat the iron during it is hot"
|
| = seize the opportunity while you can
|
| >"to come back to their muttons"
|
| you say "let's go back to our sheep" when you realize you
| digressed
| Reventlov wrote:
| We have the exact same idioms in French for the last two
| (battre le fer pendant qu'il est encore chaud, and revenir a
| nos moutons) !
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| > battre le fer pendant qu'il est encore chaud
|
| Do people actually say that? Seems very long winded.
| happyopossum wrote:
| > >"It want to beat the iron during it is hot"
|
| "Strike while the iron is hot" is a well known English saying
| as well. Guess blacksmith wisdom is universal.
| jamiek88 wrote:
| Yes in (British) English we have 'strike while the iron is
| hot'.
|
| And one that Hacker news and Silicon Valley didn't coin but
| made famous is in this maybe, sorta:
|
| > A bad arrangement is better than a process.
|
| Which can be stretched to 'Don't let perfect be the enemy of
| good' or 'real engineers ship'!
| frozenlettuce wrote:
| >horse baared don't look him the tooth => "Don't look a gift
| horse in the mouth"
|
| The original Portuguese expression would be "A cavalo dado nao
| se olha os dentes"
| dang wrote:
| The submitted URL was
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_as_She_Is_Spoke.
|
| There's also:
|
| https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/english-as-she-is-...
|
| https://muse.jhu.edu/article/173644
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| On Standard Ebooks with an appropriate cover image:
|
| https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/pedro-carolino_jose-da-fon...
| chadlavi wrote:
| Feed this into ChatGPT
| [deleted]
| WalterBright wrote:
| My favorite mistranslation came from the first time the Olympics
| were in China. One of the food vendors hung up a banner "401 Not
| Found".
| dkdbejwi383 wrote:
| I'd be interested in a source for this if you have one
| coupdejarnac wrote:
| This stuff happens in China all the time. If you visit,
| you'll surely see some hilarious mistranslations.
|
| Probably not what the above poster was referring to, but
| here's a sample:
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/engrish/comments/q1g8sh/a_restauran.
| ..
| dumb1224 wrote:
| Me too. It was a very old meme from my college days in China
| back in 2000. There were only very few at that time and one
| was that. I've always wondered if it's true.
| WalterBright wrote:
| It was a photo posted on Reddit at the time, if I recall
| correctly.
| dang wrote:
| Other examples here, including the famous Welsh road sign
| translation ("I am not in the office at the moment"):
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21502019
| closewith wrote:
| Or this picture which was posted on Reddit today:
| https://i.redd.it/2duk9a273o9a1.jpg
| simonh wrote:
| This one is my favourite, along similar lines:
|
| https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=11907
| wardedVibe wrote:
| Heaven forbid I disagree with Mark Twain, but star war:
| backstroke of the west[0] is another great example in this uh
| genre.
|
| [0]:
| https://web.archive.org/web/20170115091456/http://winterson....
| spijdar wrote:
| Since you mentioned it, I have to bring up the fact that fans
| of this, er, masterpiece made a (shockingly?) high quality
| audio dub over the entirety of the original with the dumped
| subtitles: https://youtu.be/XziLNeFm1ok
|
| This might legitimately be one of my favorite pieces of
| entertainment in existence, if only because of the delivery and
| emotion behind nonsense idiom mistranslations. It's _glorious_.
| agentwiggles wrote:
| I find that grammar perversions like this have a direct line to
| my funny bone in a way that almost nothing else does. Must have
| something to do with the subversion of expectation with
| something so incredibly basic as language.
|
| Even after seeing it many times, this old classic still makes
| me laugh: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EShUeudtaFg
| wardedVibe wrote:
| My partner and I have a difficult time saying pregnant
| without using one of those variations. Definitely one of my
| favorite bits of nonsense.
| jonstaab wrote:
| In the same vein, but for LoTR:
| https://www.angelfire.com/rings/ttt-subtitles/
| cja wrote:
| This book is featured in The Book of Heroic Failures, which has
| made me cry with laughter since I was a child. Delighted to
| discover that it's real
| simonh wrote:
| Allegedly this inspired the Monty Python sketch about the
| Hungarian-English phrase book.
| gherkinnn wrote:
| The sketch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1Sw0PDgHU4
| calebegg wrote:
| An excellent watch
| akolbe wrote:
| What's remarkable is how good machine translation (DeepL, Google
| Translate) has become at handling idiomatic expressions in recent
| years. Still not perfect, of course (there's still the odd
| clanger), but anyone trying to do the same task today would fare
| considerably better.
| gherkinnn wrote:
| I disagree. I can't speak for Deepl, but Google remains
| terrible at idioms. Give the phrase "There's mud all over the
| shop." a try.
| frozenlettuce wrote:
| another good test is "Steve Jobs was fired from Apple"
| Tade0 wrote:
| Google _search_ can 't seem to find this phrase. What does it
| mean?
| nojs wrote:
| "All over the shop" means "everywhere", maybe that's what
| they mean?
| loudgas wrote:
| "all over the shop" is another way of saying "all over the
| place" in the UK
|
| Sources:
|
| https://www.merriam-
| webster.com/dictionary/all%20over%20the%...
|
| https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/all+over+the+shop
| akolbe wrote:
| DeepL gives you the following for "There's mud all over the
| shop":
|
| "Der ganze Laden ist voller Schlamm." (German)
|
| But if you place the cursor on "Laden" ("shop") it'll offer
| you alternatives including "Ort" ("place", i.e.: "There is
| mud all over the place"). The problem here is that what's
| meant depends on context: if you are a shopkeeper speaking
| after a downpour, your entire shop might indeed be full of
| mud your customers have dragged in. (Moreover, "der ganze
| Laden" can be used in German in much the same way as "all
| over the shop" in English, i.e. referring to any sort of
| building or establishment.)
|
| More to the point perhaps, here is the output DeepL produces
| for the Portuguese phrases quoted in the table of "Phrase
| examples":
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_as_She_Is_Spoke#Phrase.
| ..
|
| 1. "Walls have ears. Alternatives: The walls have ears. Walls
| do have ears." (1:0 for DeepL.)
|
| 2. "He rides pussycats. Alternatives: Walk with pussycats.
| Come on, pussycat. He's got pussy." (1:1. BIG FAIL.)
|
| 3. "Is the road safe? Alternatives: How safe is the road? Is
| the road safe ? Is the road safe for you? (2:1 for DeepL.)
|
| 4. "He can ride a horse. Alternatives: He knows how to ride a
| horse. You can ride a horse. You know how to ride a horse.
| (3:1 for DeepL. Note that the Portuguese can indeed mean
| either "you" or "he".)
|
| 5. "He who remains silent consents. Alternatives: He who is
| silent is consenting. He who is silent is consented. Those
| who keep silent consent." (4:1 for DeepL.)
|
| 6. "What does he do? Alternatives: What is he doing? What's
| he doing? What does it do?" (5:1 for DeepL.)
|
| 7. "I feel like vomiting." Alternatives: I feel like throwing
| up. I feel like puking." (6:1 for DeepL.)
|
| 8. "This lake looks pretty fishy to me. Let's go fishing for
| fun." (Not brilliant. 6:2.)
|
| 9. "The servant ploughed the royal ground." (Acceptable.
| "Earth", "land", "soil" etc. offered as alternatives when you
| click on "ground". 7:2.)
|
| 10. "I know what I should do or what is incumbent upon me."
| (Acceptable. Offers "what is my responsibility" when you
| click on "incumbent". 8:2 for DeepL.)
|
| 11. "I earned more than thirty thousand reis. Alternatives: I
| earned over thirty thousand reis. I won more than thirty
| thousand reis. I won over thirty thousand reis." (Perfect.
| 9:2 for DeepL.)
|
| 12. "Did you understand or did you understand what I said?
| Alternatives: Did you understand what I said? Did you
| understand me? (Perfect. 10:2 for DeepL. Note that the
| repeition is there in the Portuguese: it ask the same thing
| twice, in two past tense forms that aren't distinguished in
| English (formal/informal forms).)
|
| 13. "He's a good sport, as far as I can see. Look how I've
| tamed him." (I don't think the translation in Wikipedia is
| all that brilliant. "From what I see, he kicks"??
| Alternatives offered by DeepL when clicking on "good sport"
| include: "He's got balls from what I can see. Look how I've
| tamed him." Inconclusive. Let's call it 10.5 : 2.5.)
|
| So, not perfect, but a lot less funny than "English as She Is
| Spoke".
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| _Shop_ in this context does not mean a place where you buy
| things, it most likely meant workshop originally but in
| this idiomatic phrase it just means _place_.
| Aardwolf wrote:
| What if you actually want to literally translate "There's mud
| all over the shop"?
| [deleted]
| gherkinnn wrote:
| And this is where I found translation services to fall
| apart.
|
| I worry a lot of language getting will be lost in an effort
| to reduce it to something a machine can handle.
| [deleted]
| googlryas wrote:
| Is that your own idiom? Literally never heard it before and I
| collect idioms.
| loudgas wrote:
| https://www.merriam-
| webster.com/dictionary/all%20over%20the%...
| googlryas wrote:
| Ah, ok, I thought the mud was an integral part of the
| idiom
| dbspin wrote:
| It's common in Ireland.
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| >Give the phrase "There's mud all over the shop." a try. //
|
| In which dialect of English is that an idiomatic expression?
| Never heard it before (en-gb native). What's the interpreted
| meaning??
| wheybags wrote:
| Makes sense to me, I'm Irish
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| ".. all over the shop" is a perfectly ordinary British
| Isles idiom. Perhaps more widespread than that.
| [deleted]
| AntoniusBlock wrote:
| `all over the shop' meaning all over the place, not
| literally all over a shop/store which is what Google
| Translate and DeepL translate it as. It's British and
| Irish.
| Turing_Machine wrote:
| Definitely a classic.
|
| Some friends and I used to use "spits in the coat" to express the
| superiority of one thing over another, e.g.
|
| "Framework 1 spits in the coat of Framework 2". "Sports Team 1
| spits in the coat of Sports Team 2."
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| From the Wikipedia:
|
| > _O novo guia da conversacao em portuguez e inglez_ , commonly
| known by the name _English as She Is Spoke_ , is a 19th-century
| book written by Pedro Carolino, with some editions crediting Jose
| da Fonseca as a co-author. It was intended as a Portuguese-
| English conversational guide or phrase book. However, because the
| "English" translations provided are usually inaccurate or
| unidiomatic, it is regarded as a classic source of unintentional
| humour in translation.
|
| > The humour largely arises from Carolino's indiscriminate use of
| literal translation, which has led to many idiomatic expressions
| being translated ineptly. For example, Carolino translates the
| Portuguese phrase chover a cantaros as "raining in jars", when an
| analogous English idiom is available in the form of "raining
| buckets".
|
| > _It is widely believed that Carolino could not speak English
| and that a French-English dictionary was used_ to translate an
| earlier Portuguese-French phrase book, ...
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| > "raining buckets"
|
| Really? Which part of the UK does that come from. Where I come
| from *Nort Wilts.) the related phrase would be "It's bucketing
| down!" but I've never heard anyone say "It's raining buckets!".
| humanistbot wrote:
| It's more "buckets of rain"
| WalterBright wrote:
| One of my Iranian colleagues back when I worked in an office had
| many entertaining phrases, like:
|
| "I go make some shoppings"
|
| "Time for go"
|
| Naturally, the rest of the gang picked them up and used them. I
| still say them to the consternation of others.
| agentwiggles wrote:
| In a similar vein, "do the needful" has become so entrenched in
| some of my friends' vernacular that it's now used almost
| completely unironically.
|
| Also, "like such as," from the old "Miss Teen USA" viral video,
| has stuck in my craw to the point that its use is unconscious
| (though still intended humorously).
| pxeger1 wrote:
| These are a class of mistake mainly made by native English
| speakers, but I've ended up using words like "irregardless"
| and "misunderestimated" unironically because I used them
| ironically for so long that I forgot
| raffraffraff wrote:
| Isn't that pretty much how the Americanism "I could care
| less" originated?
| nerdponx wrote:
| Yes.
|
| Along similar lines, expect a spelling convergence of
| "wary" and "weary" in the next 5-10 years due to so many
| people not knowing the difference between the two, not
| bothering to check, and perpetuating confusion by using
| the wrong one in their own writing.
| sauruk wrote:
| That one frustrates me so much. They're completely
| different words!
| user982 wrote:
| The past tense of "lead" will be dictionary-accepted as
| "lead" within your lifetime.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| "Envious" has all but completely been absorbed by
| "jealous" in the vernacular. People just use "jealous"
| for both things. Good thing there can never be any
| ambiguity about which sense is intended.
|
| "To comprise" is deployed incorrectly more often than
| correctly. Which is silly since, when used incorrectly,
| you could have simply used "to be composed of" (which is
| the thing people are confusing it for)--there's no
| benefit to using "comprised" there, all its elegance and
| subtle shade of meaning are lost anyway when you jam it
| into that clunky phrase as a perfect synonym for
| "composed". I think that's one of those fake-fancy abuses
| of language from business folks, leeching into everyday
| language. What synergy!
|
| The apt adjective, rather than various words and
| modifiers expressing degrees of good or badness--many of
| which _used_ to express more, but no longer do, as
| "massive" or "awesome"--seems to be an endangered
| species.
|
| Awkward use of "less than" inexplicably replacing the
| word "inferior" in some circles. "We must ensure none of
| the children feel 'less than'". In the words of my
| generation: "LOL WTF?"
|
| Anyone have handy any studies on vocabulary among
| Americans? It looks to have markedly decreased over the
| last few decades, but I worry I may be falling for the
| same kind of bias that seems to make everyone think
| everything's getting worse all the time. Popular writing
| gives me the impression it's written for an audience with
| a smaller vocabulary than in, say, the 1950s or 1960s,
| though.
| WalterBright wrote:
| The American GIs after the war loved to mangle Japanese:
|
| Japanese person "Ohio gazimus!"
|
| GI: "Well, Kentucky gazimus to you, too!"
|
| or:
|
| GI: "No toucha my mustache!"
|
| Things went the other way, too. My dad would collect Japanese
| flyers aimed at GIs with horribly mangled English.
| picture wrote:
| The romaji is "gozaimasu"
| dang wrote:
| Related:
|
| _English as She Is Spoke_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25784683 - Jan 2021 (129
| comments)
| IncRnd wrote:
| > it has been reserved to our own time for a soi-disant
| instructor to perpetrate--at his own expense--the monstrous joke
| of publishing a Guide to Conversation in a language of which it
| is only too evident that every word is utterly strange to him.
|
| Times aren't that different!
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(page generated 2023-01-02 23:00 UTC)