Bad translation means WAR
A few bloggers from Albuquerque didn’t like the way I wrote about their city. After discussing my views, they went on exchanging ideas about Canadians and their culture.
Their discussion is here. Everything began with my satirical post about Albuquerque. They unfortunately didn’t get the satire.
First of all, I’m not a Canadian, I’m a Quebecer (not even that – I’m a Montrealer). Secondly, that’s what happens when unilingual Anglos try to read my blog using a translation tool, trusting the results enough to discuss my opinions in great lengths. It doesn’t take much to launch a comment war on a blog, but it takes even less when the original text is twisted by a crazy robot. I hope this serves as a lesson…
Back to French now… Désolé !
Discussing views and exchanging ideas are good things, non?
Also, I think the robotic translation enhanced the level of satire. Except for this:
« …an agricultural fair including/understanding a gun show and one not beaten of snakes with bell, a couple of churches Baptists and evangelic, a déglingué cinema, a store of skin mags, one limps of night in which I do not dare to penetrate… »
Man, that’s poetry to shame Kerouac.
So please – NO WAR – we’ve had enough. You dig?
Writing satire is difficult, let alone translating it to another language. That said, I think most Albuquerqueans were amused.
Your post certainly played on many of the negatives we often fear visitors take with them once they leave our city. I might be speaking for myself now, but Canandian culture (especially French Canadian culture) has aura of purity surrounding it — that when we hear our city has some how corrupted this purity — it’s funny.
« Albuquerque? Crime capital of the world! Who said that? A Canadian! Ha! Oh, boy, now we’ve gone and done it — corrupted the Canadians. »
We know we’re not all that bad; we know every place has its grimy points — Canada and Quebec included. Your post played right into a naiveté/corruption dichotomy, which, even if the satire was literally ‘lost in translation,’ it was still amusing.
No harm, no foul.
Hopefully I didn’t just dig myself into hole! Cheers!