Member Article

Do not trust technology

An article on the Guardian website last week told the tale of an unfortunate misuse of a translation system, something along the lines of the well-known Babelfish. These systems are quite useful as a starting point, but surely no-one would trust them for important international communications? Especially when such potentially important phrases as “the Dome of the Rock” can be brought into English as “bandages of the knitted domes”.

As a little exercise, we’ve created a version of last Friday’s bdaily bulletin rendered into French, then back into English. Visit www.thebgroup.co.uk/babel/ to experience the horror for yourselves.

One of our favourites was the translation of the name of the UK’s Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government into ‘Blears hazel nut’.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .