English As She Is Spoke

We love to remind our readers (and ourselves) of the high points that shine like motivational beacons scattered all over history, but as much as one can be proud of the job and its virtues, let’s face it, there has to be some dark secret hidden in an old dusty closet somewhere that the craft is always struggling to forget.

One of these pieces of shame is English As She Is Spoke (O novo guia da conversação em portuguez e inglez), a pokey conversation guide written in 1883 by a Portuguese individual named Pedro Carolino. Let’s put this thing into context first. Travelling had always been a rather dangerous endeavor for the vast majority of the population, but by the late 19th Century, due to faster transportation methods becoming available and the widespread implementation of the insurance business in everyday life, things started to look far better for the wanderlust-filled common folk.

Only one elephant in the room remained though, and that was the fact that every country in the world spoke their own language, and people didn’t have the faintest idea on how to communicate well enough to get around without starving to death after a few days of futile hectic waving and pointing at things. So travel guides and quick reference phrase books were born, and this is where the aforementioned Pedro Carolino comes into the picture and crafts a book to help his Portuguese countrymen communicate with the good old Brits. 

Seems like a great idea, doesn’t it? Well, there was a small problem. Mr. Pedro Carolino had absolutely no idea what he was doing. To Mr. Carolino, the English language was as foreign as a sentient slug with forty heads from Andromeda is to the rest of the human race. Did that small inconvenience stop him? Of Course not!

The result is English As She Is Spoke. An absolute trainwreck of a phrase guide, littered with monstrously incorrect translations that will make your eyes watery. While its intentions may have been noble (or perhaps just an attempt to cash in with the globetrotting trend), the book was so abysmal and ridiculous it was never even published back in the day. It seemed like the world of translation just dodged a bullet and could let the thing fade into obscurity.

Fat chance. None other than Mark Twain caught wind of this literary abomination, and after a thorough study of the thing, he said that "Nobody can add to the absurdity of this book, nobody can imitate it successfully, nobody can hope to produce its fellow; it is perfect." 

In one of those rare instances of “it’s so bad it’s good”, English As She Is Spoke and its use of literal translation managed to produce what can only be described as comedy gold for the ages. To make matters worse, Carolino didn’t use an English-Portuguese dictionary as one would expect. He first used a Portuguese-French one, and THEN a French-English one. The result, as one might imagine, is totally bananas. Take a look at some of these gems, and rejoice.

On speaking French:

“Do speak French alwais?”
“Some times: though I flay it yet.”
“You jest, you does express you self very well.”

 

Popular proverbs:

“Tothing some money, nothing of Swiss”

“Triendship of a child is water into a basket”

“Take out the live coals with the hand of the cat”

“A horse baared don’t look him the tooth.”

 

A few translated masterpieces that will crash your spell checker:

As paredes têm ouvidos.		The walls have hearsay.	The walls have ears.
Anda de gatinhas.		He go to four feet.	He's crawling.
A estrada é segura?		Is sure the road?	Is the road safe?
Sabe montar a cavalo.		He know ride horse.	He can ride a horse.
Tenho vontade de vomitar.		I have mind to vomit.	I feel sick.

 

So there you go. A literary giant if there ever was one. If you ever feel a bit iffy about one of your translations, think of Pedro Carolino and his magnum opus to make any doubts magically vanish into the ether.