Friday, November 20, 2015

The wrong choice of words

Malapropisms.  They're named for Lady Malaprop, a character in Richard Sheridan's 18th-century play The Rivals.  She was always using fancy words that weren't quite right, like "The very pineapple of perfection!"

Archie Bunker's another character who often got words wrong.  He'd call the AFL-CIO "the UFO-CIA"!

Sometimes translators get words wrong.  There was a Pepsi ad campaign in southeast Asia where "Come alive with Pepsi" came out like "Come back from the grave with Pepsi." President Carter gave a speech in Poland where "my love for the Polish people" came out as "my lust for the Polish people." And Kennedy's famous line "Ich bin ein Berliner" can be translated as "I am a jelly doughnut"!

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