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PZ Myers is a biologist and associate professor at the University of Minnesota, Morris.
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Category: Weirdness
Posted on: March 12, 2006 4:30 PM, by PZ Myers
Chinese food can be such an adventure. The "Big bowl flavor vegetables pig livings bowel" sure sounds appetizing, but all the items with cowboy meat are worrisome. And that last duck chin item has me wondering whether this is a restaurant, or just a very exotic bordello.
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Comments
I woke up the kids last night when I was reading that - I could not help laughing out loud!
Posted by: coturnix | March 12, 2006 4:43 PM
"Pizza Lthick Mordacity"
I cooked that last night.
Posted by: Dustin | March 12, 2006 4:46 PM
I'll have the king's vegetables if you hold the slippery meat.
Posted by: Torbjorn Larsson | March 12, 2006 5:05 PM
I'm having a bit of difficulty taking this for real. Nobody could really get it that bad...could they D:
Posted by: Joseph O'Donnell | March 12, 2006 5:08 PM
I have a collection of English translations of Chinese poetry from the Late Tang Dynasty, and it's remarkable how many of these food items would seamlessly fit right in there:
COLOUR'S WORLD
Sparrow nest loose kind eight treasure D
Domestic life beef immerses cabbage
west the flower fries the rib a meat
wood flower picks sea cucumber hoof
fragrant spring onion sauce explodescow son
good to eat mountain
The fruit enchants.
Posted by: george cauldron | March 12, 2006 5:11 PM
"Cowboy meat" is veal. The phrase for "baby cow" is an element of the phrase for "cowboy".
"Duck chin" however, stumps me - I don't think ducks have wattles. It's likely to be duck craw.
The entry on "cucumber" was completely unfunny since it was the blogger who got it wrong - that's "sea cucumber" you unadventurous philistine. And yes, sea cucumbers have feet (to be precise, one foot) and very tasty they are too.
Posted by: JW Tan | March 12, 2006 5:22 PM
What did they mean by "Carbon burns fatty cow New Zealand"? Did they mean well done New Zealand steak? I certainly hope so. I won't stand for someone insinuating our cows are overweight.
They are rather sensitive about it.
Posted by: Joseph O'Donnell | March 12, 2006 5:28 PM
I bet you then have to eat the meal with these:
http://stupidity.rickandpatty.com/2006/01/27/chop-chop-lost-in-translation-part-2/
Posted by: Rick @ shrimp and grits | March 12, 2006 5:43 PM
"What did they mean by "Carbon burns fatty cow New Zealand"?"
Perhaps it's blackened (or wok fried) steak? That's what I associate with carbon, anyway...
Posted by: Torbjorn Larsson | March 12, 2006 6:34 PM
"Cowboy meat" is veal. The phrase for "baby cow" is an element of the phrase for "cowboy".
While staying at hotel at the Chinese Acadamy of Sciences this summer, we had a price list for the laundy service. One of the items they would clean for you was your "Cowboy Suit". The first two character of that were the same as the first two on "Cowboy Leg" near the top. Never did figure out what that meant, probably wasn't Veal though.
Posted by: JP | March 12, 2006 7:34 PM
Anyone else seen the Hong Kong amateur subtitles for Revenge of the Sith? This reminded me of that.
"DO NOT WANT!"
Posted by: Jeremy | March 12, 2006 8:31 PM
I'm tellin' ya: the next wave of standup comedy will be orations of literal translations gone wrong.
Thanks for the laughs on a Sunday night, though! ROFL!
Posted by: BlueIndependent | March 12, 2006 8:31 PM
John O'Donnel - these are definitely real. What's happening here is that a 'machine' translation was done, where either a program goes through and spits out the first English word available for each Chinese symbol. Due to most Chinese symbols having multiple meanings, this results in hilariously out-of-context translations. I recommend reading some of the comments to the post, as some explain exactly how things went wrong.
Posted by: Rachel | March 12, 2006 9:30 PM
Here are some from my favorite Hong Kong pigeon restaurant.
Pigeon s with dictyophora
Fried spork ribs in ok sauce
Biche-de mer with shrimp cells
Braised biche-de mer
and my favorite...
Fukin fried rice
Posted by: Ick of the East | March 12, 2006 11:02 PM
It must be going around; here's another menu which seems to have been machine translated word-for word:
http://community.livejournal.com/engrish/164141.html
But where else can you get "The pig picks the elder brother a cloth"? And the Frog Gruel is particularly nice.
Posted by: fontor | March 12, 2006 11:10 PM
Some explanation for the above:
Dictyophora: This very beautiful, phallic shaped mushroom, has an unpleasant, decaying flesh odour which attract large numbers of flies.
Mmmmmm.
Biche-de mer :is good stuff. It just sounds like "Bitch of the Sea".
Fukin: Should be "Fukien" (a Chinese province)
ok sauce: It's just ok. Not great, but it doesn't smell like decaying flesh.
Posted by: Ick of the East | March 12, 2006 11:11 PM
Man, frog gruel IS nice. But porridge would have been a better word to use. Gruel has got to be one of the ugliest words in English.
Posted by: Ick of the East | March 12, 2006 11:14 PM
Rick,
I've seen those chopsticks as well. This post made me think of them.
Posted by: Reed A. Cartwright | March 12, 2006 11:51 PM
JP: "Cowboy Suit" = denim/jeans
Posted by: East Ocean Person | March 13, 2006 12:34 AM
Language Log just had a post on this phenomenon. Learn how to order "Benumbed hot vegetables fries fuck silk." Sounds tasty!
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002915.html
This is my favorite science blog, thanks Doc!
@
Posted by: Lurking Linguist | March 13, 2006 2:08 AM
Gee, and I thought grammar mistakes on Pepsi cans in Japan were weird. I have one piece of advice for eating in China. It is not unknown for the Enlish language menu to have higher prices than the Chinese language menu. Some people think this is dishonest but I prefer to think of it as gentle economic encouragement to either learn the language or else put some excitment into your life by ordering off the Chinese menu at random.
Posted by: Ronald Brak | March 13, 2006 2:19 AM
The "Benumbed" is in chinese a flavor that I find near untranslatable to english. It is a special kind of hot. A more literal translation would be numbingly hot. But that does not convey the extraordinary combination of flavor and smell that i could almost experience as I type these words. If I remember correctly it involves, peppercorn, star-anise, hot chile, fryed in very hot oil. I might be missing some stuff. In any case it is great stuff if you can get the authentic flavor.
Posted by: JIanying | March 13, 2006 6:34 AM
Judging by the samples linked in this thread, ordering off the "English" menu is pretty much the same thing as ordering at random from the Chinese menu.
Posted by: Rick @ shrimp and grits | March 13, 2006 7:52 AM
And think how curious it gets here in Montreal, what with the twoEuropean origin languages people should learn. So we get translations from a language into French and then into English. From the French, despite the original language being neither. You can imagine how that goes.
Posted by: Keith Douglas | March 13, 2006 8:22 AM
The only thing that came out straight was roast squid. What are we to make of that?
Posted by: english rose | March 13, 2006 10:26 AM
[i]The "Benumbed" is in chinese a flavor that I find near untranslatable to english. It is a special kind of hot.[/i]
It's the flavour from Sichuan pepper, which I would describe as soapy / numbing. There's no equivalent in Western food.
Posted by: JW Tan | March 13, 2006 10:43 AM
the 'benumbed' flavor comes from a spice which is popular in china, particularly in sichuan food.
i think the mandarin name is "hua jiao"
it looks like a peppercorn, but has a curiously numbing effect with an aluminum aftertaste. very odd.
not surprisingly, it hasn't caught on outside of china.
(also good as a tea for sore throats!)
Posted by: djlactin | March 14, 2006 3:05 AM