1. Feedback, notes and comments
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THIRD WORLD Roger Depledge pointed out that I erred in saying that
the First Estate of the Estates-General in pre-Revolutionary France
comprised the nobility. They were actually the Second Estate; the
clergy were the First Estate. I also misnamed the Estates-General
as the National Assembly, which was the title of the equivalent
body after the Revolution. And, of course, the Berlin Wall came
down in 1989, not 1991.
MACHINE TRANSLATION Following my little item on this subject last
week, lots of messages came in quoting examples of strange computer
translations. Julian Calvert remembers working on a project for a
major German car maker in the late 1980s using a then state-of-the-
art translation package. Howlers included turning "suction pipe"
into "pig gliding" (through reading "Saugleitung" as Sau + Gleitung
instead of Saug + Leitung). He also remembers the software turning
"Kathoden" (cathodes) into "cat testicle".
But any translation is open to error, even when a human being is
involved, as John McNeil pointed out in an e-mail from New Zealand:
"My wife and I host many Asian students, and last week one gave me
a gift of a pen and pencil set. The set (purporting to have been
manufactured in the USA), came with the following instructions:
'Usage: Dipping penpoint into ink, circumgyrating sopping up in
strument for ink and revolving penholder tight.' As Flanders and
Swann said in one of their skits: so we did that!"
Molly Wolf contributed a fond memory of her days of editing texts:
"In Canada, all published government documents are ultimately
published in both English and French editions. One Parks Canada
historian, many years ago, prepared a report (in French) on an
18th-century fortification that had fraises - stakes driven into
the ground close together and on an angle, as a quite formidable
barricade. The English translation was much gentler: there were
'strawberries on the ramparts'."
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