Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.
– Mark Twain
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Mark Twain also said “Invest in land. They’ve stopped making it!”, but he was wrong there! An island in the Solomons recently rose higher by 2 to 3 meters, meaning the beaches now have a coral fringe above water, and some wrecks are now above the waves. This was part of the Tsunami event of a few weeks back- one edge of a continental plate was pushed higher.
The Solomons are already occupied, but if we keep our eyes open, we might be the first to claim any rising sea-mount as a libertarian port!
you should probably have a good-sized navy on hand then. but it’s not a bad idea… Lex Luthor would be proud!
Reminds me of the time I was proofreading a medical research paper where the wordprocessor used had decided to split a long word and fold part of it on to the next line.
It took me some time to work out what an “Anal Gesic” was.
I just burst out laughing in front of my Mac.
I worked for a medical supply company where, in the books inventory, the phrase “Coronary Infarction” turned into “Coronary Infection“.
I read somewhere that in the Japanese language, the word for anus and the word for Premier are only one vowel different! And, in french, I’ve always worried that Mercie is so close to Merde! clearly these are languages you couldn’t use in Diplomacy……
The Japanese are extraordinary though arn’t they!
Apparently the have just one word (they are fond of this Kamikazi for instance) that stands for a whole phrase.
I’ve no idea what it is, but it means-
Trying out a new samauri sword on a passing stranger
Back when I was learning Spanish, I accidentially announced to a roomfull of Guatemalans that my sister has 23 anuses. She knew enough Spanish to understand how it happened, but she almost ripped me a second one in any case.
To save money in transcription costs, physicians are being urged to adopt voice recognition software. Despite vendor claims of high accuracy, the software is far from ideal in practice. Some examples from my own radiology department:
“No finding of midgut malrotation” became “No finding of midget malrotation”
“There is normal peristalsis and compressibility of bowel loops” became “There is normal pierced balls and compressibility of bowel loops”
“Findings may reflect reactive airways disease” became “Findings may reflect ranting airlines disease”
“Hit on wrist, rule out fracture” became “Clitoris, rule out rapture”
And another nipponism- “To be, or not to be, that is the question” becomes, in Japanese, “It is, or it isn’t; what is it?” No wonder Shakespeare doesn’t impress them….
Not that English translators do such a good job, either. When Mary and William arrived to be given the throne of Great Britain, part of his speech was meant to say that he had come for the good of them all, but the literal translator, ignoring linguistic sutultees, had him say, “I have come for all of your goods!” The world’s first freudian slip?….
Given the level of practice of 19th century medicine, I doubt a misprint was needed to put the patient in danger.
More Oriental madness:
In China the title of a Steinbeck novel was rendered as “Angry Raisins”.
Also, “The Jedi Council” in the Star Wars prequels became the “Episcopelian Council”. I don’t know whether they made any connection between gay bishops and Sith Lords though…
And one from my youth that I couldn’t resist… The government at the time was running an “Aids – don’t die of ignorance” leaflet campaign. Some wag at my school morphed this into “Adis – don’t die of dyslexia”. I’m sure he wasn’t the first.
Beware of crossing a ‘health professional’.
You might die of an ‘on purpose’.
There was also a report, roughly from Twain’s time, of a hypochondriac who acquired a medical text and came down with everything but a broken arm.
Be nice to Twain. He said “Never let schooling get in the way of your education,” the wisest saying about formal education ever.
In college, I made that my creed. Oh, wait…that’s why I ended up here rather than honest work.
Triticale: that was the opening chapter in “Three Men in a Boat”.