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Translation - art & business » Lighter side of trans/interp »
Off topic: Bad Writing Awards
Thread poster: Tina Colquhoun
Tina Colquhoun
Tina Colquhoun  Identity Verified
Local time: 15:32
Danish to English
+ ...
May 15, 2007

Check out the contest for worst sentence.

It's a couple of months old so may well have come to your notice before, but this is about bad/overcomplicated/overzealous writing, the bane of a lot of our lives...

http://www.todaysengineer.org/2007/Jan-Feb/backscatter.asp
 
Jan Willem van Dormolen (X)
Jan Willem van Dormolen (X)  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 16:32
English to Dutch
+ ...
You want bad writing? May 15, 2007

...then go here:
http://www.sjsu.edu/depts/english/2006.htm
 
Victor Dewsbery
Victor Dewsbery  Identity Verified
Germany
Local time: 16:32
German to English
+ ...
Wonderful links May 15, 2007

I was especially enlightened by an example from Jan's link (from a contest for first sentences for books that have never been written):

"The day was like any other, except that this was a Wednesday so it was really only like 1/7th of the other days."
 
Vito Smolej
Vito Smolej
Germany
Local time: 16:32
Member (2004)
English to Slovenian
+ ...
SITE LOCALIZER
My top reference: "It was a dark and stormy night" contest May 15, 2007

http://www.bulwer-lytton.com/
 
Heidi C
Heidi C  Identity Verified
Local time: 10:32
English to Spanish
+ ...
I am still laughing!!! May 15, 2007

Jan Willem van Dormolen wrote:

...then go here:
http://www.sjsu.edu/depts/english/2006.htm



Wow....

Thank God we don't have to translate any of that...
(though I have translated my share)
 
Parrot
Parrot  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 16:32
Spanish to English
+ ...
Ouch! May 16, 2007

I know what you're thinking, punk," hissed Wordy Harry to his new editor, "you're thinking, 'Did he use six superfluous adjectives or only five?' - and to tell the truth, I forgot myself in all this excitement; but being as this is English, the most powerful language in the world, whose subtle nuances will blow your head clean off, you've got to ask yourself one question: 'Do I feel loquacious?' - well do you, punk?


How do you join?
 
Andrea Riffo
Andrea Riffo  Identity Verified
Chile
Local time: 10:32
English to Spanish
+ ...
... May 17, 2007

Oh boy!

Thank you all so much for the links!!!



I'd like to add one that I'm particularly fond of and eag... See more
Oh boy!

Thank you all so much for the links!!!



I'd like to add one that I'm particularly fond of and eagerly await every November:
http://www.literaryreview.co.uk/badsex.html



Last years':
http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,,1960617,00.html


Knock yourselves out! ▲ Collapse
 
Spring City (X)
Spring City (X)  Identity Verified
Local time: 22:32
Chinese to English
+ ...
<My favourite was May 19, 2007

Herr Professor Doktor Weiss' reputation was made when he conclusively proved the fraudulency of the Mayan codex that claimed to show that that ancient people knew the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter to an exactitude unknown until modern times, in his article, "Bye, Bye, Mesoamerican Pi."
 


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