3

Officials Asked For A Welsh Translation Of A Road Sign, Then Put The "Out Of Office" Response They Got On The Sign

In Swansea, a town in coastal Wales, all the road signs are posted in both English and Welsh, because car accidents are tragic in any tongue. When town officials wanted to add a sign dissuading trucks from going down a certain road, they emailed their local translator to get the Welsh version of the sign and received a speedy reply. Why, it was practically instantaneous. Not knowing Welsh, they assumed the words made sense and posted them straight on the sign:

Theoretically, Welsh-speaking truck drivers were so baffled by this cryptic motto that they'd turn around anyway.

2

The Norwegian Olympic Team Orders 1,500 Eggs In Korean, Gets 15,000

The chefs for the Norwegian Olympic team in Pyeongchang set out on a relatively easy task: ordering 1,500 eggs to cook breakfast for their 109 athletes. And like any good nation-guests, they placed the order in Korean using Google Translate. And sure enough, the next day, they received their 1,500 eggs. And 1,500 more. And another 1,500, and another ... ultimately 15,000 freaking eggs in their kitchen.

This might have something to do with the ways you write 1,500 and 15,000 in Korean:

Classic typo. Basically the Korean version of mixing up handwritten 1's and 7's.

It wasn't entirely clear whether the mistake was a translation error, a typo, or intentional mischief by Korean yolk-loving leprechauns, but the end result was, let's say, enough for some leftovers.

Chef Stale Johansen (yes, the chef's name is "Stale") said the team was able to return the extra eggs, but not before taking one of those "Oops too many eggs" selfies the teens are always snappin' nowadays:

Fingers crossed this becomes the next hot inexplicable YouTube trend.

Tore Ovrebo, the head of the Norwegian team, also called the mix-up "not a big deal." Yeah, maybe not to you, but those chickens were shitting bricks.

1

Google Translates The Ukrainian Word For "Russia" As "Mordor," And The Name Of A Russian Diplomat As "Sad Little Horse"

For a brief period in 2016, Google Translate made a number of extremely interesting mistakes whenever anyone used the service to translate Ukrainian into Russian. The Ukrainian word for "Russia" was translated as "Mordor," a word for "Russians" became "occupiers," and the name "Sergey Lavrov" (Russia's foreign minister) turned into "Sad Little Horse." Even being called a big joyful horse would be insulting enough, but a sad and little one? Disgraceful.

The potential consequences went beyond getting some Ukrainian high school students bad grades on their homework, since at least one major Ukrainian newspaper uses Google Translate to turn their entire site into Russian for the international edition.

GoogleWe'd avoid drinking tea from now on if we were the editor, especially if it has a greenish glow.

While some noticers of obvious things might claim this looked an awful lot like an intentional hacking, Google attributed the ultra-specific glitch to an automatic bug, adding that the translator tool operates "without the intervention of human translators." Which makes total sense. Sometimes, two broadly similar languages can have little coincidences, like the names of countries turning into fictional Tolkien hellscapes, or proper names turning into goofy insults. That's just normal, easily-correctable stuff you'll encounter with any algorithm. It's like how Amazon will see products you've recently purchased, then suggest, "The Israelis have NO CLAIM to the Golan Heights. Also, need more printer ink?"

On the plus side, surely if any two countries can easily forgive and forget, it's Russia and Ukraine, right? Two best buds with virtually zero history of tension. If anything, they probably laughed it off arm-in-arm over a nice cold ... what's the Russian word for vodka? *Types it into Google Translate.* "Imperialist Murder Juice?" That can't be right ...

Vodka is actually derived from the Russian word for water. Maybe pick up a Rosetta Stone guide to Russian and learn more, lord knows it's a valuable language nowadays.

Support Cracked's journalism with a visit to our Contribution Page. Please and thank you.

For more, check out 6 Mistranslations That Changed The World and The 5 Most Disastrous Typos In Human History.

Why aren't you following us on Facebook?