You may have seen this before, but having started on the theme of "what happens when you trust a machine" I remembered reading this in the Daily Telegraph a couple of years ago.
Since the mid 1960s roadsigns in Wales have been in both English and Welsh. In this case the text was sent by e-mail in English to the in-house translation team for Swansea Council. What came back in Welsh was printed on the sign. However, it actually means
"I am not in the office at the moment. Please send any work to be translated."
Funny, but not life-threatening...... unlike the bilingual pedestrian sign spotted in Cardiff in 2006 which told pedestrians to "look right" in English, and "edrychwch i'r chwith" ("look left") in Welsh.
That's fantastic. And this sign is still up? Apparently not many people read Welsh nowadays.
RépondreSupprimerI would hope the sign is no longer in place.... but if they couldn't afford to replace it, who knows? What I'd like to know is whether the "look left / look right" mistake was an attempt by Welsh speakers to bump off the English or vice versa.
RépondreSupprimerThis is so funny... I can't stop laughing! Bilingual out of office replies are definitely a must for me now.
RépondreSupprimer