As you know (or maybe you don’t), I am a fan of taking things literally. Perhaps too literally. It gives me much amusement.
Perhaps you do not understand why taking things literally is so amusing. Well, how about an example of live translation/transliteration? One time we had a meeting in which we needed live Chinese/English translation. Now then, I really respect people who are able to do live translation. It’s hard stuff. Big props to them.
Ok, fine, just one prop.
But some people are definitely better at it than others. Some people translate (or transliterate) things literally. This provides me with excessive amounts of amusement. Such as the time when someone translated the English name “Gary” into Chinese “咖哩” or “gālí.” Ok yes, they sound decently similar. But the translation of “gālí” is “curry.” The person who was translating basically told all the Chinese-speaking people in the meeting that the person’s name was Curry.
Hello, my name is Curry, and today I’ll be speaking to you about…
I found this SO. INCREDIBLY. FUNNY.
Is one example not enough? How about extremely literal interpretations of design drawings? How about cutting an angle into the stairs because there was a callout leader in the way?
Or how about cutting a revision cloud into the concrete?
Why would you drill a rev cloud into the floor?
Now then, cutting rev clouds into the concrete may be funny, but it could also cause massive amounts of damage. Like…here.
This rev cloud was cut into a water pipe and apparently caused a massive flood at a metro station in Helsinki.
I’m pretty sure that’s real. It seems like a respectable source. I don’t really know because I don’t understand Finnish. But in any case…it’s still EXTREMELY funny.
Why was I looking up rev clouds drilled into concrete? It was a byproduct of what I was really doing. Which was drawing rev clouds on some drawings I was modifying for a customer. I don’t remember what I was looking up exactly, but rev clouds in concrete apparently came up in my search.
Random moosages as I see fit. 