I found the following two names in my current translation project quite amusing:

Anita Hardon
Odile Tits

Hihi!

Today, the following fragment was in a Dutch text I was translating:

Wet BIG

What if i were to tell you that this was simply Dutch legalese for the “Individual Healthcare Professions Act”? As an English speaker, you just have to wonder which ‘act’ in particular… And what’s more, in Dutch this could also be interpreted as the “Piglet Act”. Wet piglets. I mean, what kind of a language lets this happen? Or rather, which politicians?

Sometimes this language cracks me up. It makes me wanna Wet BIG, man.

Okay, so here’s my first shot at a meme.

I like to…
RULES:
Go to Google and type “your name likes to” (eg: “Elizabeth likes to”) and write the first 20 answers that appear:

It’s amazing how in many of these statements, half is right on the money and the other half couldn’t be more wrong…

Brent likes to play video games, watch television and go to action and comedy movies.
Brent likes to see the storylines pitched simply.
Brent likes to do arts and crafts projects and has a talent in drawing.
Brent likes to skateboard.
Brent likes to pretend he’s gay. (PRETEND?)
Brent likes to dance in his booty shorts.
Brent likes to do everything at the last minute (…)
Brent likes to play paintball and is actively working on obtaining his pilot’s license.
Brent likes to haunt houses among other things.
Brent likes to swim.
Brent likes to read, renovate old houses, and spend time with his wife and daughters.
Read all the techno gobble-d-gook that Brent likes to talk about.
Brent likes to watch “The X-Files,”CSI,” and “Law and Order.”
Brent likes to run cartooning workshops in art galleries.
Brent Likes to pop out of smith grinds.
Brent likes to tell everyone that he picked me up in a bar, since the first place we saw each other after all these years was at McGarvey’s Pub.
Brent likes to ride his bike and birdwatch.
Brent likes to hang out with his disfunctional friend, Hank Yarbo.
Brent likes to race shifter carts, dirt bikes, snowmobiles, well just about anything with an engine, and he doesn’t like to lose.
Brent likes to do customized packages for specific destinations.

Pom, you next?

For those of you who are wondering just what caused the financial crisis but don’t know anything about economics (i.e. people like me), check this out:

http://www.slideshare.net/guesta9d12e/subprime-primer-277484?type=powerpoint

“It’s funny ’cause it’s true!” (Thanks Taya).

So I visited the official website of the Dutch canon (of history – a gimmick created some years ago to try to box-in the entire history of the Netherlands, yet another way in which the Dutch, through their insuppressible need for efficiency, have managed to get the facts right but miss the point entirely), to try to find an official English title that I could use in a translation I was (am) doing.

What I read there was quite horrific. It’s basically just Dutch, thinly (and we’re talking microns here, or maybe Planck lengths) disguised as English. My reaction was similar to what I experienced here. The English is so Dutch, I’m pretty sure I could produce a word-perfect reconstruction of the original without looking at it once. But just to test exactly how incomprehensible it would be to someone with no knowledge of Dutch, I’d like to get some feedback from English speakers.

So without further ado, here is the page I’m talking about:

http://entoen.nu/informatie.aspx?id=2&lan=e

Read it. Laugh. Squirm. Then please leave a comment describing your level of incomprehension.

Fiets nooit in 45 graden hitte een helling op met tegenwind van 60 km/uur tijdens een zandstorm. Het is nauwelijks te overleven.

Maar of het dan wel raadzaam is om op zo’n dag een uur piano te spelen onder toneellampen in een kleine ruimte met 40 andere aanwezigen? We zullen zien.

Huidige temperatuur: 44 graden.  Je-heezus!