The staff canteen at work has a number of TV screens on the walls that are invariably tuned to BBC News 24 or Sky News. Fortunately the volume is turned down to zero but the screens display the instant subtitles that can accompany the news feeds. I always find it interesting to read these subtitles when I am waiting for colleagues to join me at lunchtime etc. It is amusing to observe how badly the spoken words are translated into subtitles and there are often great mis-translations that entirely alter the meaning. One such gem occurred today in a political report. The reporter must have been talking about the current level of support for the Government in the latest opinion polls but the translation came out as “The Poles are not healthy”. So there you have it, the hard-of-hearing across the country will now be thinking that the Polish people are suffering from ill-health. It’ll be down to eating too many meat dumplings, too much fermented cabbage and that dreaded extra slice of poppy-seed cake I’ll wager (information on Polish cuisine courtesy of Wikipedia).
Tim O'Hare 