the_rck

I simply couldn't resist this one. I stole it from

daegaer. (I promise a real entry before the end of the week.)

1. Pick five songs that most people would know.
2. Select lyrics of up to but not surpassing 150 words from each one.
3. Go to http://babelfish.altavista.com/tr
4. Enter the lyrics thus:

English to German
German to French
French to Portuguese
Portuguese to English

5. Post the resultant gobbledegook and ask people to figure out what the songs are.

1) If, calm small bebé, vocês said not a word. Pope that goes, it to buy an order of power of raillerie. If this order of power of raillerie not to sing, Pope that goes, it to buy a diamond ring. If this funny diamond ring the brass, Pope that goes, to buy for it to look at of glass. If to look at to break glass, that goes, receives Pope to buy a Billyziege. If this Billyziege does not take off, Pope that goes, they to buy of charette and a bull. If this charette and the funny bull, Pope who goes, it to buy doggy vagabond cited. If this dog, the vagabond will be called, écorcervous not to buy Pope that goes, a horse and one charette. If this horse and charette falls for low, is still small bebé softer in the city.

2) On the pipe of isolation with cheeses I cover completely, I abandoned, my bad Fleischkloeschen, when about éternué. It stored the picture and on the floor, and then it rolled my bad Fleischkloeschen of the door and in the garden and under a shrub, and then it was not however my bad Fleischkloeschen to the nothing chews. That grass r was, as with taste, as well as with taste, could be, and early the following summer, created it in a tree. That the tree estêve covered completely with the pretty foam and on it, cultivated Fleischkloeschen with a green Tomatensauce. Thus, if it eats the isolation pipe that is covered completely with cheeses, to éternuer influences not certainly on your Fleischkloeschen and.

3) The hills are of the clay of music with of the Lieden that had sung filling for years miles the hills my heart, with the clay of music, my heart each song to sing in alive way would want, understand my heart would want to it as the wings birds to hit that they increase sea to the trees that, my heart to soupir as a bell game that flies of a church on break for laughing as a stream desires, if it unchains and tomb on rocks on its way to sing for the night as a Lerche that to request to know I go hills, if I know mine heart with the clay

4) Gummiduckie, is vocês to that, makes you the bath of the lots time of amusement, Gummiduckie to determine, is terrivelmente vernarrt nvocês; Gummiduckie, joy to the joys, if I compress them, I form you barulhos! Gummiduckie, is vocês mine very better friend, is to it right! Each day, if I form my way too much tubby me, to find small fella that it has pleasant and yellow and chubby (reiben-ein-betiteln-ein-dubby) Gummiduckie, is finishes vocês, therefore and that it is a Gummiduckie well, it is happy, he is terrivelmente vernarrt nvocês. Gummiduckie, is finishes vocês, therefore and that it is a Gummiduckie well, it is happy, he is terrivelmente vernarrt - Gummiduckie would want, a complete lake - in the Gummiduckie that is terrible nvocês vernarrt!

5) Sunny day, the clouds distant that they sweep. In my too much way that air is soft to declare me they can, as is received, as arrives Sesam-Strasse? come and game. Any ein-okay. Friendly neighbors there that it is, where we find to declare me can, as is received, as arrives Sesam-Strasse? It is a magical carpet trip. Each door confides distant to the happy people as vocês. Happy people want which pretty sunny day, sweeping clouds distant on my too much way that air is soft.

I'm not sure why number two got truncated. I probably slipped and didn't manage to get all the words on a copy at some point. I don't think there are more than a couple of words missing, though, so I decided not to go back to try to fix it.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

dhaunea.livejournal.com

Number one I will now be singing for the rest of the day. Number two has totally confused me. Number three has me reminiscing about my catholic college and the nuns. Numbers four and five have sent me totally down nostalgia lane and I thank you for it.

... but I know I should know number two and it's driving me nuts that I can't figure it out.

From:

dhaunea.livejournal.com

Ah-HAH! I figured out number two.

... and I am very displeased that it will be running through my head now. AUGH! My little brother used to sing that song until I wanted to roll HIM under a bush.

From:

the_rck

Well, there's a key word in the first line of number two that translated very oddly. "Pipe of isolation" is not a translation I'd ever have imagined for that word.

I can give you the answer elsewhere if you're interested (since you seem to be avoiding giving the answers away here).

From:

dhaunea.livejournal.com

It just doesn't seem fair to be the first person to say something and spoil it for any other guessers. But I did finally figure it out, and startled the living daylights out of my co-worker by groaning, "No WONDER the rythym sounded familiar!"

I just kept singing the 'covered completely in cheeses' under my breath until the melody presented itself and I finally recognized the song.

From:

the_rck

I think that one's actually the most obscure of the five songs. In some ways, it was less mangled than some of the others, but in other ways... 'Pipe of isolation' is going to puzzle me for a while. I mean, I know how the Pope got into the first song, more or less, and I can guess at some of the other literalisms. ::shakes head::

That song only occurred to me because one of Delia's DVDs centers around it.

From:

evalerie.livejournal.com

My theory on how the Pope got in there is that "Papa" got translated into "Father" and then the translator software interpreted "Father" as the word for "priest". Well, maybe.....

From:

the_rck

I actually used 'daddy,' so there had to be one more step in there. I've deliberately used 'daddy' in that song because Delia calls Scott 'daddy' and one of her grandfathers 'poppa.' I don't know if it's true in Portuguese, but in Spanish, 'Papa' means 'Pope.' All it would need was the capitalization... Which we'd get from German.

From:

jss

I recognize all five and if I didn't know about Delia I'd be awfully worried about your taste/choices in music. I'm assuming you don't want me to spoil everyone else's guessing game by naming the songs, though.

From:

the_rck

Well, I think they're all pretty easy to guess. ::grins:: And Delia did have a strong impact on my choices. Partly because I hear these a lot and partly because she was sitting on my lap and keeping me for searching my music collection for other options.

From:

silmaril.livejournal.com

I think the first one was a nursery rhyme. I have no idea what the second one is. The third one is ObVious. The fourth one is tickling my memory, and the fifth one is a song I should know but don't really, although I recognize the first line.

Something similar was going around some time ago, and I went very translator-happy, and had a little too much fun: Here. (http://www.livejournal.com/users/silmaril/192798.html)

From:

the_rck

Well, four of these are children's songs, so that may be what's tripping you up. If you haven't heard a lot of English language children's music or watched a lot of English language children's TV, you may not ever have encountered these (or not sufficiently to remember them).

It looks like you had fun with your translation play.

From:

leorising1959.livejournal.com

Got 'em all, posted 'em here 'cause I didn't read the comments first, deleted the posts, sorry if I spoiled them for anyone.

*slinks away*

From:

the_rck

Strictly speaking, there's no reason not to identify the songs. I think people are refraining from doing it because these are fairly easy and because guessing is fun.

So you didn't do anything wrong. And you did guess them all correctly.

From:

leorising1959.livejournal.com

Yay! Oh, and an answer to the "pipe of isolation" question:

"Spaghetti", translated from English to German in babelfish, turns into "Isolationsschlauch," which is totally crazy and weird. According to my English/German dictionary, this means "insulation/insulated hose/pipe." Okaaaaaay. I think this must be where the problem started. Trying to translate "Isolationsschlauch" from German to English in babelfish yields back "Isolationsschlauch" again.

Unfortunately, babelfish does not provide Italian-to-German translation, it would've been cool to see how it translated "spaghetti" from Italian. My Duden Bedeutungswoerterbuch says "spaghetti" is simply "die Spaghetti [Plural] - long, thin noodles." So it should've translated as "spaghetti." Go figure. ^_^

I also adore the word "Gummiduckie." I believe the u's should be pronouned as a kind of soft "oo", which leads us to "Goomidookie." Even better, as far as I'm concerned, LOL. (And "Gummi", which means "rubber" in German, is where we get "gummy bears" from -- rubber bears!)

/language geekfest

From:

jss

I think it should've been Gümmiduckie, personally.

(But then someone would comment about it needing to be Gümmiedückie, and then Gümmïdückïë, or some such, and start us reminiscing about the Burger Frësh (pronounced "Freeeeee-bing-bing-bing-sh" if I remember right) that used to be on State St.... <Sigh>.)

From:

the_rck

::laughs:: I hadn't thought about Burger Fresh (How does one put in an umlaut?) in years. I don't recall talking to anyone who'd actually eaten there. I think there's a coffee shop there now. Maybe (It's been a while since I was on campus, and I wasn't really paying attention).

And you forgot that part of the pronunciation required using one's finger to flap one's lip... ::grins::

From:

jss

On my Mac, option-u then the vowel will create the umlauted vowel: ä, ë, ï, ö, ü, & ÿ. If you try it on a nonumlautable character, it'll print the umlaut to the left of the character (e.g., ¨b, ¨c, ¨d). I don't recall what your computer hardware is any more.

I thought the lip-flapping just went with the "Give me a B!" joke. But it has been a while. :)

From:

evalerie.livejournal.com

HTML has its own codes for letters with accents and umlauts. A u with an umlaut is ü -- it looks like this: ü

From:

jss

True, though I'd just had a discussion in someone else's LJ on my Fiends List about the (paid user feature) phone postings, where the transcription mode ignores HTML tags and &-escapes, so I wasn't thinking about raw HTML.

From:

the_rck

Well, it's possible that I couldn't do the 'bling-bling-bling' without flapping my lip. Such things have happened before. Or I might be misremembering entirely.