In article , Davey scribeth thus
Kill-lom-meters?..
Y/N?...
Re: I despair (take 2 ...) OT
Apr 27, 2014
141 Replies
As in the instructions for a sink waste; "Penetrate the waste through the aperture, add the nut and circumgyrate it."
Sound painful!
I dislike utilise when use would do perfectly well.
Ouch!
Try getting a Dutchman to pronounce "Ruislip"
But we have as much trouble with most of the Dutch language.
Or an Englishman to pronounce "Cuijk" :-)
Or a northerner to pronounce Wrothem Road, Meopham.
In article , The Medway Handyman scribeth thus
Didn't you mean Wrotham?...
Try Goodnestone.
snip
Like this?
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Or Happisburgh
You have too vivid an imagination. That's one of the less inscrutable translation examples I've seen in a long time. I like the imaginative use of the word "circumgyrate" though.
I guess the reason for such bad translations is possibly a lack of idiomatic equivilents in the Chinese language as far as technical instructions are concerned.
It's a defficiency akin to the reason given for the lack of chemical research and progress in their pre-twentieth century history due to perfecting the art of ceramics a thousand or so years back to such a level of refinement that there was no incentive to develop the art of glass blowing and hence no laboratory glassware to facilitate such research beyond mixing Charcoal, Saltpetre and Sulphur in the right proportions to make cracking good fireworks.
I stand corrected :-)
"Where would we be if we didn't have any rules? France."
Then there is "Blyth" which most people can cope with, but change the first letter and you get "Alyth" - a small town in Angus.
What a coincidence!, as over on the TX-list for radio anoraks it's having its 59th birthday today:-)...
On This Day in Broadcasting History....
1932 (82 years ago) Broadcasting House brought into service1955 (59 years ago) BBC Wrotham (VHF) in service
1964 (50 years ago) Horizon started on BBC2
You've answered the obvious question, which is "Where the f*ck is Alyth?"
I thought I'd better give that hint - the real test is to pronounce it.
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