Dear Ms Norris,
        The country was Poland, the President was Carter, and the
     translator's name was Steve.  He was not an official State Department
     interpreter.  His faux pas was to translate Carter's description of
     "leaving the United Staes for Poland" as "emigrating from the United
     States to Poland" which, quite naturally, caused the Polish military
     commanders on the dias behind Carter to glance at one another in
     disbelief.  The news commentators got a lot of mileage out of "Polish
     jokes" the next day when the error was pulicized.

     Barbara Reeve,
     Australian National Maritime Museum


______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________
Subject: Re: Communication trivia
Author:  Museum discussion list <[log in to unmask]> at -Internet
Date:    11/27/96 1:14 PM


At 01:54 PM 11/26/96 EST, Lynn Norris wrote:
>We've got a continuing discussion on miscommunication
>going.  Does anyone remember the incident where Jimmy
>Carter was with a foreign dignitary and the translator
>was speaking an archaic version of the language?
>Breznev? maybe.  We can't decide whether is was Carter or
>Reagan.

I remember being told a story about Kruschav's (sp) famous visit to the
United Nations.  K spoke a colorful and vernacular Russian filled with
colloquial expressions.  At one moment in his talk he wished to express the
idea that one idea had nothing to do with another, and used an expression
which translated literally something like "My mother has roses is her
garden and your wife has an aunt in Kiev."  The translator, attempting to
make sense of this, translated it as "Something is Fishy in the State of
Denmark."  At which point the representative from Denmark rose in objection
asking K to explain why he was insulting Denmark.

At another UN session, this one on insect damage to African crops, the
assembly was being told about the Rhinoceros beetle infestation.  But the
translator goofed and told the audience that trees were being destroyed by
swarms of Rhinoceroses who were climbing trees and eating all the leaves.





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Robert A. Baron
Museum Computer Consultant
P.O. Box 93
Larchmont, NY 10538 (USA)
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