From: jlm@ugcs.caltech.edu (Jacob Mandelson)
Newsgroups: alt.humor.best-of-usenet
Subject: [rec.humor.oracle.d] Re: Likeness of Oracle? Lisa? Og?
Date: 14 Apr 1998 09:55:37 +0200

Subject: Re: Likeness of Oracle? Lisa? Og? 
From: shipbrk@gate.net (Jeff Lee)
Newsgroups: rec.humor.oracle.d

panther@access1.digex.net (Panther) wrote:
>
> Oh, lord, I guess I'm going to hell now.  Eliza impersonators and cascades
> and brSff and Texans barbequeing pigs wasn't enough, we had to have people
> feeding random stuff through the Babelfish too.  I feel sorry for the
> first well-intentioned newbie that gets a Babelfish-translated question.

Well, *somebody's* gotta do it, so what the heck.  Save a spot for me
near the fire, Panther...

German:    How much would wood clamp a forest waldmurmeltier, if a
           forest waldmurmeltier could clamp wood?

Italian:   How much wood in the bloccherebbe mandrel a North American
           beaver, if a North American beaver could block the wood in
           the mandrel?

Portugese: How much it works with wood a woodchuck would launch, if a
           woodchuck could launch the wood? 

Spanish:   How much wood one marmota would throw, if one marmota could
           throw the wood?

French:    **no_translation**


And finally, English to Spanish to English to Portugese to English to
Italian to English to German to English:

           How much play a North American beaver of the wood, if a North
           American beaver could play the wood?

Oddly, even *that* won't translate into French.  Perhaps The Question is
simply impossible to express in French?  Is French, then, the Perfect
Language?

And strangely enough, The Question won't translate to convergence in
German -- it just keeps adding the word "forest".  After a few
iterations, I ended up with:

        How much would wood a forest clamp the forest forest
        waldwaldmurmeltier forest, if a forest waldmurmeltier could
        clamp forest forest forest wood?