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Friday Funnies: Translation takes the pea

Nil Pois

When it comes to French translations, this headline from the Cambridge News really takes the pea.

Presumably it was meant to read ‘Nil Points’, rather than referring to the small green vegetable.

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  • December 12, 2014 at 10:42 am
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    Bloody subs eh… oh hang on, they probably don’t have any.

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  • December 12, 2014 at 3:30 pm
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    Joking aside, that is an utter shocker. You could perhaps make excuses if the did not have subs, but they do.

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  • December 12, 2014 at 5:03 pm
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    The South Today TV prog is very often good for a laugh over poor spelling or at least hamfisted keying in.
    Last night a caption came up on air saying “principle officer” and a few months ago there was one saying “Sollent” instead of Solent…and Ventnor, Isle of Wight, was spelt Venntnor…

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  • December 12, 2014 at 11:25 pm
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    I see misspellings in newspapers all the time. ‘Principle’ for ‘principal’ is common, as is ‘their’ for ‘there’.
    Headline howlers are nothing new. How about the Chester Chronicle’s infamous: ‘Last chance to enter Miss Nantwich’?

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  • December 13, 2014 at 8:22 pm
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    The fact that the headline then refers to detail makes this all the more amusing…

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  • December 14, 2014 at 9:36 pm
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    As a a one-time newspaper sub I would have changed this to Nul Points. Not Nil.

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  • December 14, 2014 at 10:56 pm
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    No, the Cambridge News doesn’t have any subs. I was one of that whole department “eliminated” last year.

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  • December 15, 2014 at 5:31 pm
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    Back in the day (again)…
    interviewed a young woman with a very unusual surname.
    She asked me to please, please, please make sure it was spelled correctly this time (she was no stranger to being mentioned in the newspapers).
    I took great care to check with her that I had it right.
    At the time, in order to indicate to the subs that you’d checked the spelling, you put one line under the name and one tick above in your copy – that was all that was (allegedly) needed. This time I put three lines under and three ticks over. It still appeared wrong in the paper.
    I went looking.
    “I thought it was wrong so I changed it,” said he who was responsible.

    Those who get paid more are always right, those paid less are not; those out in front of the public get to look the pratt, those hidden in the office do not – and it has nothing to do with any facts…

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  • December 15, 2014 at 10:33 pm
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    And even if we knew what the words were meant to be, it still wouldn’t be entirely clear what the headline was meant to mean….

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