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Path: utzoo!linus!wivax!tackett
From: tackett@wivax.UUCP (Raymond Tackett)
Newsgroups: net.jokes
Subject: Translations -- Automated
Message-ID: <19037@wivax.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 14-Dec-83 21:54:24 EST
Article-I.D.: wivax.19037
Posted: Wed Dec 14 21:54:24 1983
Date-Received: Thu, 15-Dec-83 02:35:51 EST
Organization: Wang Institute, Tyngsboro, Ma.  01879
Lines: 19

For you newcomers, here are a couple of early attempts at
computer translation:

"The spirit was willing but the flesh was weak" went from
English to Russian as "The wine was agreeable but the meat
was bad".

"Out of sight, out of mind" went to Chinese as "invisible idiot".

By the way, ancient languages like Chinese have a problem picking
up new words.  One dodge is to use combinations of sounds from the
language which end up being pronounced something like the foreign
original.  The drink "martini", for example, became "ma ti ni" in
Chinese.  Usually the sounds don't mean anything, but in this case
"ma ti ni" (with the proper inflections) means "the horse kicked 
you".  Not too bad.

Ray Tackett