English As She Is Spoke
English as She Is Spoke is the common name of a falsely José da Fonseca ascribed to the 19th century, published in 1853 Portuguese- English phrasebook of Pedro Carolino. It is because of variety of mistranslations as a classic example of involuntary humor. Carolino led Fonseca as a co-author on without informing them and transferred its probably earlier, quite a successful French- Portuguese manual in a crude English.
Probably Carolino could even no English, but used an existing French -English dictionary to O Novo Guia da conversação em português e francês by José da Fonseca translate.
Comments
Mark Twain wrote the preface to the American edition, which was published in 1883 already to entertain. He said to English as She Is Spoke
"Nobody can add to the absurdity of this book, nobody can imitate it successfully, nobody can hope to produce its fellow; it is perfect. "
"No one can increase the absurdity of this book, nobody can imitate it successfully, nobody can hope to write an equivalent, it's perfect. "
Stephen Pile mentioned the book in his compilation The Book of Heroic Failures and praised it for its crude pictures: " Is there anything in Conventional English Which Could equal the vividness of 'to craunch a marmoset ' " (In this comment Pile changed the original "to craunch the marmoset " something. ) the English word " craunch " is a synonym for " crunch " ( nibble ), and " marmoset " means " Marmosette " where British native speakers think of the British slang for masturbation " spank the monkey" and North American native speakers of crispy fried monkey. It is a mistranslation of the French expression " le crunch marmot ".
Examples
Some statements, such as " It is better to be single as a bad company. " It is as bad company better to be alone. ' Instead of the actually -meant, It is better to be alone than in bad company ', to which it should read ... than in bad company revealed seen for himself quite a new meaning.
Edition history
Related titles
The title inspired more book titles, so
- English as she is wrote (1883 )
- English as she is taught (1887 ), with an introduction by Mark Twain
- Britain as she is visit a parody of a corresponding Guide by Paul Jennings, British Life (M Joseph, 1976)
A Monty Python sketch in 1970 used a similar misunderstanding in which case the failure of a Dirty Hungarian Phrase Book ( Dirty Hungarian encyclopedia ). An attempt of Hungary to shop with the help of the lexicon some cigarettes in a tobacco shop, ends in a brawl and a court case.
The sentence My postillion HAS BEEN struck by lightning ( My coachman hit by lightning ) applies in the English language as a prime example of meaningless phrases in encyclopedias and became a running joke about in the magazine Punch as well as in textbooks for English as a foreign language.
Around 1915, a very faulty New Pocket Dictionary appeared Franco-German and French - German in the Paris office of the publisher Thomas Nelson, as its author a K. Ashe was given. Kurt Tucholsky published in 1929 in the Vossische newspaper under his pseudonym Peter Panter the article " Jonathan's Dictionary " with a fictitious history of the dictionary.
"What is everything in the world is a " chicken Dear "? What a " corpse man " is, as anyone who has been there once; but why " entirely " not only " tout " is, but also " gîte non exploité ", a unused position ... that must have been a good, old whiskey, an old, good .. "