The problem is that, “In these difficult times, we must count on Norman Wisdom” has quite a different message for native English speakers.īut at least when humans fail in their translations, they are usually making some attempt to understand what it is they’re translating. Interpreters in Brussels still regale newcomers with the tale of the newbie who translated, “En ces temps difficiles, il faut compter sur la sagesse normande” quite correctly. By making his Babel fish a naturally occurring phenomenon, he was implicitly acknowledging the impossibility of humans ever producing something “so mindbogglingly useful”, capable of tackling not just the raw vocabulary of a language, but also the cultural baggage that goes with it. For those raised on a diet of Douglas Adams and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (and that’s 99.999% of all people who write about technology), this represents nothing less than the first coming of the Babel fish, an aquatic creature that excretes simultaneous translations directly into its host’s ear canal.Īdams knew what he was doing.
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