This is a lot worse than Eat, Shoots And Leaves, but if I know the Dutch, they have a sense of humor. Another thing to note is that the average citizen of Holland speaks fantastic English making this translation, and the use of Babelfish at that, wholly unnecessary.
Online translator sparks diplomatic row (Thanks, D!)
… The beginning of the email read: ‘Helloh bud, enclosed five of the questions in honor of the foreign minister: The mother your visit in Israel is a sleep to the favor or to the bed your mind on the conflict are Israeli Palestinian.’ The translation was flawed as Babelfish confused ‘ha’im’, the Hebrew word for ‘if’, with ‘ha’ima’, which means ‘mother’.
Sounds like the vowel misinterpretation of the word for “rays” in Hebrew.
The phrase in which the word is used is in reference to when Moses came down from Mount Sinai – it looked as though he had rays of light shining behind his head. In the European language translations of the Bible, however, the same three Hebrew letters, with different vowel sounds, could also mean “horns” rather than “rays”. With that one wrong translation, centuries of Gentiles thinking that Jews had horns began with a vengeance. As recently as a few decades ago, my grandfather-in-law had to convince a fellow Army trainee that he most certainly did NOT have horns.
It also explains why, if one looks carefully at Michelangelo’s sculpture of Moses, horns can clearly be seen protruding from his head.
There’s “lost in translation”, and then there is just WRONG translation.
Hey, when I used to get bored in a particularly worthless meeting on a project I hated, I would run the Business Requirements Document through English-to-Dutch then back to English, and would ask the technical lead in instant messages which was worse: the original or the frightening tranlation.
It also confirms, once again, that nobody wants to have their mama insulted, no matter who they are or where they’re from. That NEVER gets lost in translation.