Yesterday, I invented a new art form. It's called Babel Fish Poetry (BFP for short). For a while, I was very proud of myself, until I realised that lots of other people have already had the same idea. That took the fun out of it a bit. Nevertheless, not every engineer can say that they invented a new art form, even if it is a particularly obvious one.
A babel fish, for those who don't know, is a
creature dreamt up by Douglas Adams. More importantly, it is also a
translation website. Getting software to translate between languages is not an easy task, and there are clearly still a few flaws that need to be ironed out. In a perfect world, you could translate from one language to another and back again, and basically end up with the same thing you started with. Unfortunately it doesn't quite work that way at the moment. The result is (as Douglas himself might have said) almost, but not quite, entirely unlike the original sentence. So if you loop it around, translating back and forth continuously, you end up with something that vaguely resembles the original meaning, but with a lot of nonsense thrown in.
It all started with Wil, who was practising his german by explaining why his email wasn't working. I went to babel fish to translate it, then decided to see what would happen if I flipped back and forth a few times:
- Tut mir leid für dem Verspätung. Ich glaube, es gibt ein problem mit mein Yahoo.
- Wrong for that delay does to me. I believe, it give a problem with my Yahoo.
- Falsch für das verzögert tut zu mir. Ich glaube, es Geben ein Problem mit meinem Yahoo.
- Wrongly for retarded does to me. I believe, it to giving a problem with my Yahoo.
- Falsch für verzögert tut zu mir. Ich glaube, es zum Geben eines Problems mit meinem Yahoo.
- Wrongly for retarded does to me. I believe, it for giving a problem with my Yahoo.
Interesting, but I was only just beginning to uncover the potential of BFP. Next, I tried the same starting point, but going german-french-english-german-french-english etc. This uncovered some interesting things about scythes and elasticity, but still wasn't quite satisfactory. I needed a better starting point, something with meaning. Here is my best example of BFP so far, a result of a english-french-german-english repetition:
- Eventually, it seems inevitable that the meaning is lost.
- Lastly, it seems inevitable that the importance is lost.
- It seems for the last inevitable time that the value is lost.
- It seems during the last inevitable mark that the value is lost.
- It seems during last inevitable marking that the value is lost.
That's deep, man. It was at this point that I discovered that
other people have had the same idea. No matter. It's still fun, even if it's not original. It turns out that english-japanese-english is quite a good transition:
- Eventually, it seems inevitable that the meaning is lost.
- After all, as for that meaning being lost it seems that is not avoided.
- After all, as that you do not avoid lost, it seems the way for that meaning.
- After all and as that you do not avoid Lost, it seems the way for that meaning.
- After everything and was gone as that and avoiding, it seems like method for that meaning.
- As everything goes, rear that like method for that meaning avoiding, can curve and been.
- In order for everything to go, like method for that meaning of bending and avoiding there is a rear section where it can reach.
- As for in order because of everything, bending there, like method for that meaning of evasion going it is the rear section which can reach.
I think there's something in that for all of us...
-Brett
