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    English as She is Spoke: or A Jest in Sober Earnest
    English as She is Spoke: or A Jest in Sober Earnest
    English as She is Spoke: or A Jest in Sober Earnest
    Ebook101 pages46 minutes

    English as She is Spoke: or A Jest in Sober Earnest

    By Pedro Carolino

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    About this ebook

    This book was intended as a Portuguese-English conversational guide or phrase book, but is regarded as a classic source of unintentional humour, as the given English translations are generally completely incoherent. The humour appears to be a result of dictionary-aided literal translation, which causes many idiomatic expressions to be translated wildly inappropriately. Mark Twain said of 'English as She Is Spoke' that "Nobody can add to the absurdity of this book, nobody can imitate it successfully, nobody can hope to produce its fellow; it is perfect.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherWilder Publications, Inc.
    Release dateNov 15, 2019
    ISBN9781515441663
    English as She is Spoke: or A Jest in Sober Earnest

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    Reviews for English as She is Spoke

    4/5

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    • 4/5
      What happens when you use a Portuguese-French phrasebook and a French/English dictionary (and zero knowledge of English) to make a Portuguese-English phrasebook? This happens. It's hard to pick a favorite "common" English phrase, but I am especially amused by "You hear the bird's gurgling?" For extra giggles, read aloud. In short, this book really craunched the marmoset.
    • 5/5
      This book was first published more than 150 years ago, as a serious attempt to provide English/Portuguese words and phrases for the adventurous Portuguese tourist. Unfortunately, the author did not speak any English, and relied on TWO dictionaries to get to French and then to English. The result is hilariously inaccurate, often inappropriate, and totally believable.It is very reminiscent of the Monty Python sketch The Hungarian Phrasebook, in which bizarre and often lascivious translations of simple day-to-day phrases cause the publisher to appear in a British court. After several of the more inappropriate phrases are read into the record, he pleads incompetence. My money's on this book as the inspiration.That this was ever accepted by a publisher speaks reams about the book business. That it survives today is a tribute to a sense of humor and a sense of the absurd. This book will never be obsolete or out of date. It's a minor treasure.
    • 5/5
      It's probably impossible to improve on Mark Twain's review of this timeless tome, and I won't even try. Suffice it to say that time has borne out Twain's prediction that as long as English is spoken, this volume will be circulated, printed, and read to gales of laughter and astonishment. Contains the most evocative phrase ever written in English; "To Craunch a Marmoset."
    • 4/5
      This entertaining historical artefact neatly illustrates that comic Babelfish translations are not a recent phenomenon. Language - it's there to trip you up.
    • 4/5
      An amusing collection of material.
    • 4/5
      This is a horribly hilarious Portuguese-English dictionary written by two 19th century Portuguese scholars who couldn't speak English. They used a Portuguese-French dictionary and a French-English dictionary to write their book, with predictable results. Mark Twain had this comment about the book: "Nobody can add to the absurdity of this book, nobody can imitate it successfully, nobody can hope to produce its fellow; it is perfect."A couple of typical phrases, from the section on fishing:"Silence! there is a superb perch! Give me quick the rod, Ah! there is, it is a lamprey.""That pond it seems me many multiplied of fishes. Let us amuse rather to the fishing.""Try it! I desire that you may be more happy and more skilful who acertain fisher, what have fished all day without to can take nothing."English As She Is Spoke is a great read for a rainy day, and an ideal gift to lift someone's spirits.
    • 3/5
      How could I have never come across this unique book before now? I won't kid you. It won't have you rolling on the floor in laughter, but you will definitely crack of few smiles as you read it. It is sort of like the Ed Wood of language books. The author is really earnest, but he just doesn't know what he is doing!After reading this, you will surely want to craunch the marmoset and burn the politeness.
    • 3/5
      This is an odd little book. It is purported to be a Portuguese to English phrasebook written by "men to which English was entirely unknown" in the 19th century. Apparently this was accomplished with the aid of a Portuguese/French dictionary and a French/English dictionary. Between the tragic grammar, bizarre word choice and inexplicable statements demanded by 19th century living you end up with nuggets like this:"These apricots and these peaches make me and to come water in mouth.""The pantaloons is to narrow.""Is it complete this parlour furniture in damask crimson?""Don't you fear the privateers?""I shall you neat also your mouth, and you could care entertain it clean, for to preserve the mamel of the teeth; i could give you a opiate for to strengthen the gums."I'm about 85% percent sure this book is what it claims to be. But I can't completely believe it because it was published by McSweeney's.

    Book preview

    English as She is Spoke - Pedro Carolino

    English as She is Spoke

    or

    A Jest in Sober Earnest

    by José de Fonseca & Pedro Carolino

    With an Introduction by

    James Millington

    ©2019 SMK Books

    All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission except for brief quotations for review purposes only.

    Wilder Publications, Inc.

    PO Box 632

    Floyd, VA 24091-0632

    ISBN 13: 978-1-5154-4166-3

    Table of Contents

    Introduction

    Author’s Preface.

    Translations

    Defects of the body.

    Degrees of kindred.

    Trades.

    Objects of man.

    Woman objects.

    Servants.

    Diseases.

    Parties a Town.

    Kitchen utensils.

    Of the bed.

    For the table.

    Eatings.

    Seasonings.

    Drinkings.

    Quadruped’s beasts.

    Birds.

    Insects-reptiles.

    Fishes and shell-fishes.

    Trees.

    Flowers.

    Hunting.

    Colours.

    Metals and minerals.

    Common stones.

    Weights.

    Games.

    Perfumes.

    On the church.

    Solemn-feasts.

    Ecclesiastical dignities.

    Chivalry orders.

    Degrees.

    Military objects.

    Music’s instruments.

    Chastisements.

    Familiar Phrases.

    Familiar Dialogues

    For to wish the good morning.

    For make a visit in the morning.

    For to dress him self.

    The walk.

    The weather.

    For to write.

    The gaming.

    With the tailor.

    With a hair dresser.

    For to breakfast.

    For to ask some news.

    For to buy.

    For to dine.

    For to speak french.

    For to see the town.

    To inform oneself of a person.

    For to ride a horse.

    With a watch maker.

    For to visit a sick.

    For to travel.

    With a inn keeper.

    From the house-keeping.

    For the comedy.

    The hunting.

    The fishing.

    With a furniture tradesman.

    For embarking one’s self.

    With a gardener.

    The books and of the reading.

    The field.

    The writing.

    With a bookseller.

    With a dentist.

    With a laundress.

    For to swim.

    The french language.

    Familiar Letters.

    Racine to M. Fitart.

    Mothe to the duchess of the Maine.

    Montesquieu to the abbot Nicolini.

    Anecdotes.

    Introduction

    FROM the time of Shakspere downwards, wits and authors innumerable have made themselves and the public more or less merry at the expense of the earlier efforts of the student of a strange tongue; but it has been reserved to our own time for a soi disant instructor to perpetrate—at his own expense—the monstrous joke of publishing a Guide to Conversation in a language of which it is only too evident that every word is utterly strange to him. The Teutonic sage who evolved the ideal portrait of an elephant

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