The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1903-05-25
HUMoRs OF INSTRUMENTATION.
English Language Often Twisted
Into Odd Meanings.
Washington Times.)

It is perhaps due to the difficulty of
the English language that the average
foreigner, however painstaking he may
be. so often finds himself Iapsing into
quite unconscious humOr when he tries
to express himself in it.
The gentleman who was responsible,
for instance, for the following para
graph in the columns of an English
paper published in Germany, was, no
doubt. very innocent and well meaning,
but he certainly conveyed quite false
impression when he wrote: The
bishop of -- has left England for New
York, pursued by Mrs. T" What
he meant to say was, no doubt, ac-
companied' by Mrs T; but the pic
ture he suggested of a grave and right
reverend bishop fleeing from his pur-
suing spouse was as far removed from
fact as could well be-
Those who wandered through the last
Paris exhibition in its earliest days
were amused to see the following leg
end wherever the paint was still wet:
Beware Of the pictured" 1t did not
seem TO occur to the bold translator
that the French word ''pOinturs' and
the English picture were not neces-
sarily the same thing.
All" wrote an enthusiastic French
man of a young lady who had reused
his admiration. she is young lady Of
great mizzen topmast." What he
meant to say was that the lady was
very Sprightly, but, unfortunately, the
French ''fOugue" has a nautical equiya-
lent in his dictionary, as well as the
word ''Sprightliness, and il was his
bad luck to choose it for the purposes
Of his description.
The HindOO is responsible for many
amazing efforts of translation. A mis-
siOnary, lately returned from India,
tells how once. when he wished to have
the beautiful hymn:
Rock of Ages. cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in thee
translated into Hindoo, he intrusted
the task to a clever young native stu
dent.
To the missiOnary's amazement, the
HindOO version, when translated into
English. ran thus:
Very old stone split for - benefit,
Let me absent myself under one of your
fragments
which was not quite what the author
of the hymn meant to convey.
1t was a well known German clergy
man, addressing an English-speak
congregation in Berlin, who threw his
audience into commissions by fervently
saying at the end Of his speech. God
kipper your worthy pastOrl" which re-
minds one of another gentleman Of the
same nationality professor in Ber-
lin-who, when bidding gOOG-by" at
the station to some English friends,
startled them by saying: Farewell!
Good voyage! I expect you viii be
jammed from de danger" Of course,
the weIl-meaning man hoped" his
friends would be preserved from dan
ger during their journey, but his way
of expressing this wish was not quite
happy.
According to the rendering in an IN
dian Bible. the command, Judge not,
that We be not Judged assumes the
startling form, DO not justice, lest
justice be done to you" and a French
lady raised a doubt as to her sanity
when one day recently she ordered a
waiter to bring her d boOtjack (tire-
botte) instead of the turbOt she had
set her heart on.
But, after ALL the English of the
Swiss hotel keeper carries off the palm
for unprecedented humOr. This, for
instance, is the way in which a well
known hotel is advertised in a Swiss
newspaper:
THE - hotel is a favorite resort of
those who love the solitude. Those
who are in search of the loneliness are,
in fact, focking to this hotel from all
the fOrequarters Of the globe" While
the landlord of an Alpine hotel coun-
sells his guests thus:
'MisterS the venera bic vOya gers are
earnestly requested not to take the
clothes of the bed to see the sun rise,
for the color changes