Translation frolics

It's been a while since I last posted a story of translation-related hilarity; so here's a new one. Dictionaries: never leave home (or the police station) without one!
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"Vote with your body": must try that

One afternoon a couple of years ago (after sitting in on a seminar on Husserl: a namedrop that will set the tone) I was enjoying a coffee on the terrace of a café just outside the gates of Cardinal Mercier's Higher Institute of Philosophy, and chatting to some American philosophy students. I'd bought an anthology of Dorothy Day's writings that morning, and spotting it one of them recommended Utah Phillips to my attention.

Although I'm drowning in translations and lecture prep at present, I did want to share these snippets off youtube, fruits of my just-before-bed substitute for television (which is becoming just too dire to contemplate). Two years ago there was only the hilarious Moose Turd Pie: there's been a Utah Phillips explosion on youtube since.

"If Dorothy Day would be standing right here on this stage now, that wonderful woman, if she was standing right here and looking at you with those piercing black eyes, I know exactly what she'd say because I've heard her say it ..."


And a 20th-century folksong, The Trooper's Lament:

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St Nicholas

The good holy man will be visiting soon. A shame that this won't be available in time for 6 December ...
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George Formby

Came up in an email exchange, and with Youtube almost everything ever distributed can at least be sampled now. Twenty years ago I used to sit peeling potatoes and carrots while watching TV repeats of his wartime propaganda films...

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Lost in translation

This is almost too hilarious to be true.

It's good to see people trying to translate but they should really ask for expert help.

I coudn't have put it better myself.
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*Sigh*

I'll get back to blogging soon; in the meantime, another link.
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