Sunday, April 24, 2011

To Thais: I Recommend Avoiding Google Translate

My friend Franky wrote, in Thai script on Facebook, something about having fun.

Wanting to post a response in Thai script so I'd appear ever-so-clever, I went to Google Translate and typed in "More girls, more beer, more life" (an axiom of Pattaya Beach), and got "สาวเพิ่มเติมชีวิตเบียร์มากขึ้น" as a result and posted my response to Franky.

Unfortunately, when I put "สาวเพิ่มเติมชีวิตเบียร์มากขึ้น" back into Google Translate for the Thai to English translation, the result was "More beer, more young lives."

Either M.A.D.D. has hijacked Google's system, or their Translate engine needs a bit more work.

3 comments:

grumfan said...

Hi Jil,
Your description of the BBQ competition has left me incredibly hungry. i haven't had any real BBQ for years. (Must go south soon!)

Here is something I think you may want to comment on: http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/praise-citizens-rankin-county-mississippi_557677.html

This needn't get posted in the comments unless you want it to. I would like to hear your commentary about it.

PS - How is your "off-shore helpers" business working out?
(I don't really know what I should call it.)

Grumfan

Jil Wrinkle said...

Grumfan,

Interesting story, though further checking finds a couple people who were there saying that the "law bending antics" did not happen.

I find it most interesting for 2 reasons: First, because it may be more important not because it is true but because it is an intriguing possibility.

Second, I find it interesting because it shows that, given selective suspension of, and interpretation of "equal protection under the law", anything can be accomplished.

Obviously, the violence against an individual (which didn't happen) that nobody would stand forward and claim took is simply mob rule, and has no place in society, the more vague "sit in" by the anti-protesters' vehicles blocking the WBC church member's cars in the hotel, and the refusal of any tow trucks to come and remove them is an interesting concept. Obviously the "taking the WBC people in on trumped-up suspicions" is another one that we probably shouldn't applaud too loudly about if it really had happened in this country.

In the end, unequal enforcement of the law, unequal protection under the law, and unequal susceptibility to the law are not things we want to encourage... but anyone who wants to get a parking ticket so that those WBC cult members can't get to their protests on time, they get my respect.

Jil Wrinkle said...

p.s. To the best of my knowledge, the Westboro Baptist folks don't actually stay in hotels or motels. They drive straight through for however many hours it takes to get from Kansas to wherever it is they are going to protest, do their "pickets" and then immediately turn around and go home.