English as She is Spoke

Bad english is the best kind. Communication is an art, and mistranslation is a beautiful side effect when cultures collide. Which brings us to the fabulous book called "English as She is Spoke". It's value lies in the fact that it has the worst english I've EVER read:

"This 1883 book is without question the worst phrasebook ever written. The writer, Pedro Carolino, who was Portuguese, did not particularly speak English, nor did he have a Portuguese-English dictionary available. Instead, he worked with a French-English phrasebook and a Portuguese-French dictionary. The results, I'm sure you'll agree, are staggering."

Indeed . Check out some fine examples of this marvelous phrasebook from the category "Familiar Phrases":

"These apricots and these peaches make me and to come water in the mouth."

"It must never to laugh of the unhappies."

"Take that boy and whip him to much."

Or this "familiar dialogue" regarding weather:

The weather.
We shall have a fine weather to day.
There is some foggy.
I fear of the thunderbolt.
The sun rise on.
The sun lie down.
It is light moon's.

Anyway, you get the idea. You can't go wrong with Crazy talk from the 1800's. That's vintage. Check it out here...

And speaking of weird use of language, check out this blog I found called "Computer Dreams and Poetry". The poems are all written by a computer!! Wow. Computers writing on computers. We truly are living in the age of insanity.

(via linkfilter)