Bon

Recently I saw Appreciate the Cheese translated into Spanish. It was a revelation. My writing is beautiful in Spanish!

It amazed me how much a quick translation changed the look and feel of my words. I bet everything could be helped by a quick translation. Take this little bit of venom from George W. Bush:

Today, I call upon the Congress to promptly pass and to send to the states for ratification an amendment to our Constitution defining and protecting marriage as a union of a man and woman as husband and wife.

Not pretty. But take another look, in Italian:

Oggi, invito il congresso per passare subito e trasmettere al dichiara per la ratifica una correzione alla nostra unione di definizione e di protezione di costituzione come unione di un uomo e di una donna come il marito e moglie.

It softens the whole message! (somehow.) Now, just to torture Bush, let's translate his hate into French:

Aujourd'hui, j'invite le congrès promptement pour passer et envoyer aux états pour la ratification un amendement à notre mariage définissant et protecteur de constitution en tant qu'union d'un homme et d'une femme comme mari et épouse.

Wonderful! And a new language not only softens the message, it can make it beautiful as well. It's true! Take a look at Russian:

Something about backwards N's ... it's very comforting. Greek is very attractive as well:



And Japanese - well, wow, even I'd vote for this amendment:



But let's face facts, making that text pretty is like putting lipstick on a pig (don't put lipstick on a pig). There must be a language that is just as foreign, yet keeps the edge



Ahh, there we are.

[Note: Most of these translations are probably WAY off - I can only work with what Babelfish gives me.]

[Note2: This post was a BITCH to do - Blogger does not take kindly to foreign languages, so I was forced to make several languages graphics in photoshop. Also, Law & Order was preempted for basketball again, and that always puts me in a bad mood]

[Note3: OK, add to all that the fact that Blogger was down tonight for much longer than its "planned" time. I'm going to demand every dime I paid back! Oh, wait.]

[Note4: Spell-checking this post was nearly impossible. Everything in French is misspelled.]