Some Funny Translations

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 338, 30 January 1889, Page 4

Some Funny Translations

One account of the late German Emperor 1 a r funeral, writes David Ker- in 'Harper's Weekly,' stated thab the sermon was preached on a text taken from. 'the Book of Jacob' — a hitherto unknown portion of Holy Writ— the real words being the 'Epistle of James' (Jakob). An English translation of a German novel rendered Ich habe einen Gast bekommen (I havo got a guest) by 'I have become a ghost.' Another transformed • food for reptiles ' into 'the Diet off Worms.' In a French version of ' Guy Mannering ' the phrase * a stickit minister' (unsuccessful preacher) figured as une minislre ctssccssine. Nor are the tides of books a less fruitful field of mistranslation than their contents. A Vienna translation of George Eliot's 'Felix Holt, the Radical,' was entitled ' Felix ; Hold the Rascal !' The play, of ' Love's Last Shift ' was reproduced in Paris as ' La Derniere Chemise de I' Amour. ' Rob Roy still figures in Russia as Bob the King, ' Hoy ' having been confused with ' Roi.' A similar misconception curned Memoires de Roy d'Argens into Memoirs of a Silver King — an exploit almost rivalling that of the farmer who named a pet rooster ' Robinson ' because he ' crew so.' But the palm of mistranslation is certainly due to an Englishman who some years ago pome to a foreign teacher to be ' finished ' in German, and was asked to write a sentence in colloquial English, and then to translate it. He wrote : 'He has bolted, and has not settled his bill,' translating ib by *Er hat verriegelt, und hat nicht einsiedeln ' to 'settle as a colonist,' and 1 Schnabel, " the bill of a bird,' This extraordinary sentence really signified, ' He has driven in a bolt, and has not colonised his beak.'