Monday, March 01, 2004

Divertimento com o Babelfish (Fun with the Babelfish)

The other day, Halfling and I were bored while pondering where to eat dinner, and we decided to translate our blogs into Portuguese using the AltaVista Babelfish (if you're unfamiliar with the site, it's where you can go to translate blocks of text--or entire web pages, for that matter--into various foreign languages). It was pretty funny. The title of mine, for example, comes out as "Os musings do Kev: Pensamentos aleatórios e Rants de um Saxophonist diário."

Today, in an even bigger fit of whimsy, I decided to take a chunk of the translated text (in this case, the Sassy paragraph from yesterday's post), put it into the Babelfish again and re-translate it to English. The results were pretty funny (props to J-Guar for the idea)...

ORIGINAL POSTING: I have to give a shout-out to Sassy, one of the most awesome dogs ever. She was born on Feb. 29 of '84 (thus making her a "leap dog") and gave my family many good years. At first when we got her, my folks called her a "moodle" (part maltese, part poodle), but later on they found out she was probably a bichon frise, which sounds fancier (and more than a little bit like cussing in French). When she died, Dad got sympathy cards. For real.

PORTUGUESE TRANSLATION: Eu tenho que dar shout-out-para fora a sassy, um dos cães os mais awesome sempre. Foi carregada fevereiro em 29 de '84 (que faz assim lhe do "um cão pulo") e deu a minha família muitos anos bons. No início quando nós a começamos, meus povos chamaram-na um "moodle" (parte maltese, poodle da parte), mas mais tarde neles encontraram-na para fora eram provavelmente um frise do bichon, que soasse mais extravagante (e mais do que um bocado pequeno como cussing em francês). Quando morreu, o dad começou cartões do sympathy. Para real.

RE-TRANSLATION: I more have that to give shout-out-for it are sassy, one of the dogs awesome always. It was loaded February in 29 of ' 84 (that dog makes thus it of the "one pull") and gave to my family many good years. In the beginning when we start it, my peoples had called it one "moodle" (part maltese, poodle of the part), but in them they had later found it for it are were probably one emphasizes of bichon, that he sounded fancier (and more of the one than a small bit as cussing in Frenchman). When it died, dad started cards of sympathy. For Real.

Now I remember why I only visit that site every now and then: it causes hours of meaningless fun (whereas I, of course, only have time for minutes of said fun). Try it on your own site if you want, and post the results here in the comments (remembering Haloscan's 100-character limit, of course).

QUOTE OF THE DAY: "You can't go that fast--it's a Monday!"--Demon Matt, after I randomly opened up the Omnibook and made him sight-read something this morning. Evidently the tempo I counted off was a bit on the sprightly side...

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