We have a great Mexican restaurant in our town called El Jacal. I had to find out what the name meant because I don’t speak Spanish. What if I was ordering burritos in a place called The Sloth or The Dirty Laundry?
You see my point. I looked it up. It meant The Shack.
Much better than The Horse Hoof.
One day recently, I made arrangements to meet my nephew at El Jacal for lunch. Full of myself, I asked him if he knew what it meant.
“It means the mansion or something like that,” he said.
“No, it means the shack.”
“No, I’m pretty sure it doesn’t.”
He obviously needed enlightening. I asked, “Who told you it meant the mansion?”
“My buddy Jose,” he said. “Who told you?”
“Google Translate.” It stinks when you might be less right.
Photo by Kathy Brasby
Translating is a tricky business. Once a Chinese translator turned our American idiom, “out of sight, out of mind,” into “invisible, insane.”
That translation was handy when the kids were young. They knew the story about the Chinese translation so I thought I was being cute when I responded to their chaotic race through the house by calling out, “Be invisible, insane.” It was less helpful when they said they thought the last part described me.
A few years ago, I bought a small (cheap) PA system and dug out the instructions.
You’ll want to see these. And I did not make anything up:
- “Features: Lithium battery, long battery life. Loud-speaker works pretty good.”
- “To extend the battery life, please charge after the battery is use out.”
- “Attentions before wearing the ear-hanging microphone: Before wearing, please don’t turn on the power and volume.” I am still not making this up.
- “Don’t change the battery by yourself under warranty. Be sure that the pole is right when the change the battery.” (Why would I have to know how to change the battery if I’m not supposed to, under threat of voiding warranty?)
- “Turn the volume button clockwise or anticlockwise can increase or decrease the volume.”
- “Cut in and pull out the plug often may cause the disbad connection between microphone and amplifier.”
I kept the instructions long enough to copy these juicy phrases and then figured out the little PA system on my own.
My theory? These instructions were translated. Maybe by Google Translate.
In any case, I think they fall in the “invisible, insane” dustbin.
