Either World Domination or Something About Bananas: Difference between revisions

== Comics ==

* In ''[http://disneycomics.free.fr/Ducks/Rosa/show.php?loc=AR143 The Curse of Nostrildamus]'' by [[Don Rosa]], Donald Duck and Scrooge finds the tomb of the eponymous seer and Donald tries to translate the text written on the grave:

'''Donald''':: Whoops! It REALLY says "Sudden death to whosoever disturbs the tomb of de Nostrildames". }}

 

* In [[Lawrence A Perkins]]' story "Delivered With Feeling", the alien race which calls in an Earth fixer to help them deal with other, invading aliens has a VERY difficult language, fragmented into numerous dialects. The fixer's solution involves a "patriot dialect" keyed to the slogan "The manly honor of our forefathers is unblemished"; but the invaders manage to render it as "There are no body lice on my grandfather's mustache". This actually makes sense in context, as the fixer tells his computer to make it as difficult as possible for foreigners to understand.

* In ''[[The Heroes of Olympus]]''' second book, when Percy first arrives at the {{spoiler|Roman camp}}, the quartermaster Octavian says that the stuffing of disemboweled teddy bears (yes, you read that right) foretold Percy's arrival:

* In the ''[[Vorkosigan Saga]]'' novel ''Diplomatic Immunity'':

* Ax does something like this in ''[[Animorphs]]'' (the kids are in fly morph):

 

 

* The artificial [[Star Trek|Klingon]] language has all kinds of similar-sounding words with completely different meanings; for example, the word for "to be weird" sounds similar to the word for "to be", resulting in an ... interesting gaffe in a Klingon production of ''[[Hamlet]]'' with a human playing the lead role; also, the words for "money" and "forehead" sound similar ("You lack a forehead" is a deadly insult to [[Rubber Forehead Aliens]]) as do "fist" and "torso" ("show me your fist" is an expression equivalent to "put your money where your mouth is", and ordering a Klingon to reveal his or her (especially her) torso is generally not a good idea).

** From "The Reckoning", an episode of [[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine|DS9]]:

'''Dax''': ''Given the tone of the rest of the inscriptions, I would bet on the horrible suffering.'' }}

*** It turned out to be the {{spoiler|fruit eating (watch what Kira's eating at the beginning)}}.

* Referenced in one episode of ''[[Stargate SG-1]]'':

** Which may look strange at first, considering the apparent unlikelihood of any other language having "leg" and "legacy" use similar sounds. However, as [[Reality Is Unrealistic]], it happens frecuently in [[Real Life]]; see below.

* ''[[The Suite Life On Deck]]'' has an incident where Cody translates some hieroglyphs as instructions to free Bailey from a curse unleashed by a crown. "...that or a recipe for fish tacos".

* While shopping on ''[[Babylon 5]]'' Garibalidi comes across a vendor selling what is either an aphrodisiac or a furniture polish, the translator can't tell. He comments that it had better not leave a waxy residue on anything.

** See also: any episode of ''[[Babylon 5]]'' where [[My Hovercraft Is Full of Eels|Ivanova speaks Minbari]]. It was something of a [[Running Gag]] on the show.

'''Lorien:''' "Ahel" means "continuous fire" in Minbari. }}

** And then there was:

* ''[[NCIS]]''

** From the season three episode "Under Covers":

'''Ziva''': They're either discussing letting us go, or the best way to murder us. ''[[[Beat]]]'' It's a complicated language! }}

** "The Meat Puzzle", when talking about Ducky's mother:

* The ''[[Whose Line Is It Anyway?|Whose Line Is It Anyway]]'' game "Foreign Film Dub" has two players [[As Long as It Sounds Foreign|pretend to speak a foreign language]] and the other two players "translating" their lines. Given the nature of the show, the trope would apply even if the language being spoken was accurate.

* The [[Live Action Adaptation]] of the French novel series ''[http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fant%C3%B4mette Fantômette]'' had one episode with a henchman translating the manual of a stolen machine from Japanese. He reads that an improper use could result in a big ''something'', which could be an explosion or a samurai attack.

== Video Games ==

* A quest in ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' requires you to steal attack plans from an ogre tribe. When you give them to the questgiver NPC, she remarks:

** Bonus points: You can actually ''read the message yourself'' before turning the quest in, and the wording is vague enough that both interpretations are technically valid, though the first is (of course) more likely to be correct.

*** And in the next quest, she sends you to get information from the ogre lieutenant:

It could also be Billy. }}

* Tatooine, ''[[Knights of the Old Republic]]''. The player can ask HK-47 to translate the speech of a Jawa who's asking for help rescuing his tribe from the Sand People (the PC speaks Jawa so the game provides subtitles, but the Jawa's grammar is [[Strange Syntax Speaker|even worse than Yoda's]]). HK responds that there is a 98% chance that he is indeed asking you for assistance with rescuing his tribe. The remaining 2% is the chance that "the diminutive organic is merely looking for trouble and needs a good blasting. [[Token Evil Teammate|This may be wishful thinking on my part]], Master".

* In ''[[Sonic Colors]]'', Tails attempts to build a translating device for the Wisps. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pVHJeIUWOI It... doesn't work well].

** Of course, he tells Sonic that the device can only translate Yakker's language into ''binary''. Genius or not, it's impressive that he's getting words out of it at all, even if they are the wrong ones.

* In ''[[Star Control]]'', the Orz are so utterly incompatible with this universe that your translation device doesn't have a clue what it's doing, and frequently has to resort to "best-fits". Like *dancing* for "combat". Other subtitions make even less sense.

* ''[[Neverwinter Nights 2]]'' has an example when the player asks resident bard Grobnar Gnomehands to [[You Are the Translated Foreign Word|translate the name given to you]] by the [[Scary Dogmatic Aliens|Githyanki]].

 

 

== Webcomics ==

* In one ''[[Order of the Stick]]'' panel for ''[[Dragon (magazine)|Dragon]]'' magazine, it's the punchline:

'''Vaarsuvius:''' They have three, actually. Theirs is a complex culture. }}

 

* The [[Trope Namer]] is ''[[The Fairly Odd Parents]]'', specifically [[The Movie]] ''Abra-Catastrophe'', wherein Cosmo serves as the translator for the monkey following the group around. Every time he translates something the monkey said, he always provides something that makes sense for context, then adds, "...or something about a banana. I'm not sure which."

* The ''[[Aqua Teen Hunger Force]]'' episode "Travis of the Cosmos" had an alien taking over Shake's brain to communicate. Unfortunately, the alien only spoke broken Japanese. Frylock tried translating, but could only come up with a marriage proposal.

* In the ''[[Pinky and The Brain]]'' episode ''Around the World in 80 Narfs'', Brain accidentally upsets a group of Italians. Pinky pulls out his phrase book and says something to them. He then tells Brain that he either said "We're sorry" or a terrible insult. Naturally, it was the insult.

 

** And it's also an English noun, ''home''.

** Finnish also has this gem. Taken from [[The Other Wiki]]:

* Then there is "crack" (Anglicization of Irish language "craic", or is it the other way around?), slangy word for good-time-and-good-company. There is a tale of a Bronx bar which advertised "free crack", and found it had been -- misunderstood.

* An example from English: removing the apostrophe from {{smallcaps|Joe Blow's Seafood}} changes the meaning from "Seafood belonging to Joe Blow" to "Joe performs lewd acts on seafood." [http://www.flickr.com/photos/vertigogo/1563924386/ Oh no, they left it out!]