Lost in the Translation

**Hutch863** · 31st May 10, 05:56 AM

I want to know if you received what you ordered?

**KiltedKnome** · 31st May 10, 06:44 AM

Brilliant!

**Sir William** · 31st May 10, 08:22 AM

Originally Posted by Hutch863

I want to know if you received what you ordered?

No, dwarf wasn't on the menu. Nor troll nor elf either.

After some very startled looks from the waiter and a very short man at the next table over, we managed to work out what I wanted.

**AFS1970** · 31st May 10, 09:28 AM

Originally Posted by Sir William

No, dwarf wasn't on the menu. Nor troll nor elf either.

What kind of low class restaurant was this, that didn't have any of these on the menu? Next you will tell me they didn't have gnome or pixie either.

**Whidbey78** · 31st May 10, 11:26 AM

Reminds me of a friend who got a tattoo in Mandirin that supposedly said "Fortune Favors the Bold" but found out years later that is said something about what kind of men turn him on.

How long did it take for someone to catch that? You would think someone had to have noticed in the course of making, packing, shipping, unpacking, putting it up...

**ggibby** · 31st May 10, 12:05 PM

Examples of what happens when companies try this...

http://engrish.com/

**McClef** · 31st May 10, 12:07 PM

I should point out that this "news" is a couple of years old and I cannot understand why Y Cyngor Abertawe (Swansea Council) could not have done it in house at that time.

Mistakes are rare but everything should be proof read and checked before a sign is made, not afterwards.

Where a language that is native but not given at least official support and overwhelmed by the usage of another language, then that language is in danger of dying. There are native but minority languages all over the place and it might be amusing to see goofs that can in any case happen in many kinds of translations but the exceptions do not prove the rule.