In Wales, by law all signs must be bilingual, English first, Welsh second. Unfortunately as a fair proportion of Welsh people are not Welsh speaking this does not always go to plan! This is a classic! N's brother sent me the picture. This sign, near a supermarket in Swansea (or Abertawe in Welsh), reads 'No entry for heavy goods vehicles. Residential Site Only' in English ... In Welsh it reads: 'I am out of the office at the moment. Please send any work to be translated'!. A hapless, non-welsh-speaking, council worker had sent an email to an in-house translator with a request to translate the sign from English to Welsh. The translator was out of the office and so the email bounced back with an out of office reply in Welsh. The council worker thought he was getting a speedily efficient translation and without checking 'the translation' got the signs printed up and erected. It was only after some time had passed that amused Welsh speaking passers by let the council know their error!!
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4 comments:
oops!
I saw this on the BBC website at the end of last week and it made me chuckle!
Oh wow! That is too good. I'm sure that caused some excitement and many chuckles!
I know I'm laughing pretty hard :]
That is too funny! :)
I know it made me laugh! It's brilliant! Poor guy though, I know he should have checked it out but he must have got into a fair bit of trouble!
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