[RosieCotton]

My brother and I have spent hours over the last few years playing around with babelfish...trying putting in song lyrics and translating them to, say, Japanese and back. It's highly amusing!

One of the more insteresting translations I've seen was for a Y2K document. I was in Germany at the time, and in preparation for Y2K we were finding out what contigency plans our utility companies (which were actually based in various countries) had in place.

The French power company had a line which translated as something like, "in the event of the loss of computer capability, the man will take charge", meaning systems would be switched to manual. We had a good laugh over that, though..."you the man! Take care of our powah!"

[Corin Stormhands]

I have a watch that I'm wearing that shows the correct analog time, but the digital has never been correct because we can't read the instructions (printed in eight different languages, one of which is presumably English). The little one likes to push the buttons (because the face lights up), so at the most inopportune times the alarm will go off...

Maybe I should input the instructions into Babelfish.

[ksen]

One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.

In French: "Un Anneau pour les gouverner tout, Un Anneau pour les trouver, Un Anneau pour les apporter tout et dans l'obscurité les lie."

Back to english: "A Ring to govern them all, A Ring to find them, A Ring to bring them all and in obscurity secures them."

Hmm, doesn't have quite the same impact.