Forum: Weblog comments

This kind of thing has a long history...

"Rumors have it that early modules for English to Russian have mistranslated some idioms with amusing results. Translating the phrase "The spirit was willing, but the flesh was weak" to Russian and back to English resulted in: "The vodka was good, but the meat was rotten." Likewise "out of sight, out of mind" reportedly yielded the phrase "blind and insane.""

http://www.snopes.com/language/misxlate/machine.htm

That's a very interesting story!

Once I talked to an Australian here in Brazil, and he told me about a similar incident with the customs. The officer used an automatic translation software to talk to him, and the program translated "Rio de Janeiro" (the city) to "January River". Sometimes the original is easier to understand