How Did Bablefish KNOW? Can It SEE Me?

by Shelly Kneupper Tucker on December 26, 2008

glove Do y’all know Babelfish? It’s a translator that I have on my blog so that people who don’t speak the same language as mine can still read my blog page (sort of). I put it down there on the sidebar with the list of previous posts, and I did it mainly for Lola. She is a sweetheart of a blogger from the Canary Islands in Spain, and she comes here faithfully to read.

Now, bless her heart, when Lola makes a comment she almost always makes it in English, because she knows that Spanish eludes me. I can ask, “How much does that cost?” I can say, “I want that!” And, I can ask where the bathroom is. Other than that, I’m lost.

I sure hope that Babelfish translates my blog for her better than it translates hers for me! Most of what I read at her blog seems like babbling from Babelfish. You’d think she was speaking in tongues. I know that it’s not doing her words justice.

I sincerely doubt that it does justice to mine, either. You see, I speak “Texan,” which is a whole ‘nuther language than “English.” Babelfish doesn’t give an option of “Translate from Texan to Spanish.” And, Babelfish seems to have trouble translating idioms and slang, which is just about all I know how to use in a sentence!

But, I went to her blog the other day to wish her some Christmas cheer, and decided to write my comment in Spanish, and then in English…just in case that would help her any. I thought that would be a nice gesture, so I typed my message into that little text box that Babelfish gives you, signed it “Shelly,” and then I copied it and pasted it.

But, something didn’t look quite right. Where I wrote “Hugs, Shelly” Babelfish translated: “Abrazos, exfoliados.” What the heck was “exfoliados?”

I translated it back to English, and the answer to the above question was “exfoliated.” Sure as shootin’, Babelfish translates “Shelly” to mean “exfoliated!” I tried translating every other name I knew, and it did them right. Why was I “exfoliados?”

Now, at this point, y’all, I was falling out of the chair laughing, because I was thinking about a product like “Nair,” that removes the hair from your legs–supposedly. I’ve never had much luck with it, because … well…I have pretty durned hairy legs. In fact, I’ve told you before that Chewbaka has nothing on me! I thought that “exfoliate” meant to remove the hair on your legs, and I was thinking that Bablefish hadn’t seen me in shorts lately, or it wouldn’t be calling me that.

But, then my Sweet Spousal Unit, whose vocabulary is better than mine, told me that I had it wrong. Here is the definition:

ex·fo·li·ate
1. To remove (a layer of bark or skin, for example) in flakes or scales; peel.
2. To cast off in scales, flakes, or splinters.
v.intr.
To come off or separate into flakes, scales, or layers.

OH. My. Thunder!!!

Some of you may have read that I had a chemical reaction to some old hand lotion I used about six weeks back. I’m not gonna tell you again: THROW AWAY any old lotion you have! It’s been absolutely horrible! My hands and feet have been peeling in sheets —exfoliating!!! I’ve been plumb embarrassed to be seen in public without my “Michael Jackson” gloves. I don’t know how I’m going to serve beans and barbecue in all that sparkly stuff at our family get together!

“Exfoliados,” eh. That’s just too weird. How did Babelfish know that? Maybe it really reads my blog??

Do any of y’all know of a better translator than that one? I think I want to change from Babelfish, because I feel like I’ve entered “The Twilight Zone!”