{"id":5383,"date":"2009-08-18T12:32:58","date_gmt":"2009-08-18T16:32:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=5383"},"modified":"2009-08-18T14:31:07","modified_gmt":"2009-08-18T18:31:07","slug":"balancing-act","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2009\/08\/balancing-act\/","title":{"rendered":"Balancing Act"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

A famous translation exercise (well, famous among wordish-nerdish types) takes the phrase “one man’s meat is another man’s poison,” translates it into Russian, and then back again into English. I can’t find the result online anywhere (maybe the exercise isn’t as famous as I’d thought), at least without buying access to a document apparently by someone speaking at a language\/English conference. But it was predictably bizarre, as literal translations tend to be.<\/p>\n

A Web site called Translation Party<\/em><\/a> (which I just found courtesy of an acquaintance’s “shared items”) automates this. The translation process begins with an English phrase; you click on the “find equilibrium” button, and off it goes — translating the phrase to Japanese, then back into English, then feeding the translated English back into the translate-into-Japanese engine, and so on. “Equilibrium” is said to be reached when the engine repeats the same translation twice.<\/p>\n

Here’s what I got<\/a> from the famous tagline (well, famous among movieish-nerdish types) tagline for Jaws II<\/em>: “just when you thought it was safe to go in the water”:<\/p>\n

Please also enter the water safely.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If you try it yourself and come upon a translated phrase so good that you just have to look at it, like, once a month*, note the link at the bottom which stamps your result onto a T-shirt or mug.<\/p>\n

The Internet world is so full of strange and\/or wonderful things…<\/p>\n

By the way, feeding the “one man’s meat…” line into Translator Party doesn’t work. It just goes back and forth, repeatedly switching the two phrases on either side of the “is.” Eventually it gives up and says equilibrium will never be reached. (I know how it feels.)<\/p>\n

__________________<\/p>\n

* Depending on the frequency of your laundry cycle.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A famous translation exercise (well, famous among wordish-nerdish types) takes the phrase “one man’s meat is another man’s poison,” translates it into Russian, and then back again into English. I can’t find the result online anywhere (maybe the exercise isn’t as famous as I’d thought), at least without buying access to a document apparently by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","h5ap_radio_sources":[],"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[37,50],"tags":[1135,1376,1377,1378,1379],"class_list":{"0":"post-5383","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-onlineworld","7":"category-language-writing_cat","8":"tag-translation","9":"tag-translation-party","10":"tag-one-mans-meat-is-another-mans-poison","11":"tag-jaws-ii","12":"tag-time-sinks","13":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-1oP","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5383"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5383\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5387,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5383\/revisions\/5387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}