How babel fish almost caused a diplomatic incident
This article appeared in the Guardian on Wednesday November 07 2007 on p3 of the Comment & features section. It was last updated at 00:17 on June 13 2008.
Amazing, the internet. You can feed a phrase in one of the major world languages into a translation site like Babel Fish (babelfish.com), and out it will come another. Type, for example, “internet translation sites like Babel Fish are more trouble than they’re worth”, click the “English-to-French” button, and you get “les emplacements de traduction d’internet comme des poissons de Babel sont plus d’ennui que la valeur de they’re”. Put back into English, that yields “the sites of d’internet translation as of fish of Babel are more d’ennui that the value of they’re”, which, you will agree, is about as close to the original as to make no meaningful difference.
So when indignant officials at the Dutch foreign ministry received an email from a group of Israeli journalists that began, “Helloh bud, enclosed five of the questions in honor of the foreign minister: The mother your visit in Israel is a sleep to the favor or to the bed your mind on the conflict are Israeli Palestinian,” they might perhaps have guessed what had happened.
Sadly, they did not. Nor did the follow-up questions (”Why we did not heard on mutual visits of main the states of Israel and Holland, this is in the country of this” and “What in your opinion needs to do opposite the awful the Iranian of Israel”) enlighten them. And now, according to the Jerusalem Post, the aforementioned journalists’ planned fact-finding trip to the Netherlands as guests of the Dutch government is in jeopardy. “How could this email possibly have been sent?” an anguished Israeli diplomat asked the paper. “These journalists have sparked a major, major incident.”
Blame Babel Fish, bud: it mistakes the Hebrew word for “if” (ha’im) for the Hebrew word for “mother” (ha’ima), and reckons “the Dome of the Rock” can reasonably be rendered in English as “bandages of the knitted domes”. So let that be a lesson to you. Or, as Babel Fish would have it in German, “Lassen Sie so einfach, daß eine Lektion zu Ihnen seien Sie.” Which apparently means: “Leave so simple that a lesson to you are you.” Amazing, the internet.
Vacancy: Information Systems Manager
We are currently looking for a dynamic Information Systems Manager to manage and direct the development of all ICT systems underpinning the Home Connections Choice Based Lettings (CBL) and Virtual Reality services and Office systems.
The closing date for applications is 5pm, Monday 4th August 2008. Please submit a copy of your CV along with a minimum of 2 sides of A4 detailing your skills, abilities and experience based on each item of the person specification.
Please download the following:
Please send applications by email only to paul.robson@homeconnections.org.uk
We look forward to hearing from you.
Local authority trailblazers
We’re delighted to congratulate one of our company owners the London Borough of Camden for being selected as one of the 12 local authority trailblazers. Each of the trailblazers will get up to £350,000 to develop their housing advice services, making links to employment advice and other services in accordance with their locally identified needs. The funding will enable local authorities to create advice services tailored to the needs of their local area and local clients, away from the one size fits all approach.
We are working very closely with Camden on our Housing Employment Connections demonstration pilot. This is the Greater London Authority sponsored project and we will be piloting our approach with Camden, Haringey, Islington and Peabody Housing Trust in the late summer.
The 12 successful council trailblazers are:
1) Camden, 2) Croydon, 3) Greenwich, 4) Hammersmith & Fulham, 5) Southwark, 6) Norwich, 7) Nottingham, 8. Kettering, 9) Blackpool, 10) Calderdale, 11) Ashford, 12) Bournemouth
