You can't make this [hqiz] up....

[theoldwolf]

A British academic who spent seven years collecting the dung of rare lizards in the Philippines was devastated when a clean-up team threw it out of his laboratory with the trash. "To some people it might have been just lizard [hqiz]... but to me it represented years of painstaking work," he said.

Irish police were scratching their heads to find out how a single Polish driver whose name had been recorded as "Prawo Jazdy" could have chalked up so many traffic offences -- until they realised that the phrase simply meant "Driving Licence" in Polish.

[It was a while before the American tourist figured out why every Italian town was named "Sottopassaggio", at least according to the train stations...]

A six-year-old girl became an instant media celebrity in China when a TV interviewer asked her what she wanted to be when she grew up. "A corrupt official, because corrupt officials have lots of things," she replied.

Lots more here.

Comments

[fearciuil.livejournal.com]

Apparently, the "American tourist" wasn't a musician. My realtor complained at one point that musical jargonese is actually another language. ;P

Those are too funny.

[carlfoxmarten]

Does "reset" in Russian really mean "overlord"?
(geeks, I'm quite sure, would be interested in wearing one like that...)

[ccdesan.livejournal.com]

The deal was,

"Instead of the Russian word for "reset" (perezagruzka) it featured a slightly different word meaning "overload" or "overcharged" (peregruzka).

How that poor translation happened, I don't know, but I'd say a head (or two) has already rolled.