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English as She Is Spoke

O novo guia da conversação em portuguez e inglez,[a] commonly known by the name English as She Is Spoke, is a 19th-century book written by Pedro Carolino, with some editions crediting José da Fonseca as a co-author. It was intended as a Portuguese–English conversational guide or phrase book. However, because the provided translations are usually inaccurate or unidiomatic, it is regarded as a classic source of unintentional humour in translation.

The humour largely arises from Carolino's indiscriminate use of literal translation, which has led to many idiomatic expressions being translated ineptly. For example, Carolino translates the Portuguese phrase chover a cântaros as "raining in jars", when an analogous English idiom is available in the form of "raining buckets".

It is widely believed that Carolino could not speak English and that a French–English dictionary was used to translate an earlier Portuguese–French phrase book O novo guia da conversação em francês e português, written by José da Fonseca. Carolino likely added Fonseca's name to the book, without his permission, in an attempt to give it some credibility. The Portuguese–French phrase book is apparently a competent work, without the defects that characterize the Portuguese–English one.[2][3][4]

The title English as She Is Spoke was given to the book in its 1883 republication, but the phrase does not appear in the original phrasebook, nor does the word "spoke".[1][5]

Cultural appraisals and influence

Mark Twain said of English as She Is Spoke "Nobody can add to the absurdity of this book, nobody can imitate it successfully, nobody can hope to produce its fellow; it is perfect."[6]

Stephen Pile mentions this work in The Book of Heroic Failures and comments: "Is there anything in conventional English which could equal the vividness of 'to craunch a marmoset'?"[7] The original has "to craunch the marmoset", an entry under the book's "Idiotisms and Proverbs". This is the author's attempt to translate the French slang idiomatic expression croquer le marmot, used to indicate "waiting patiently for someone to open a door",[8] with croquer referring to the "knocking" or "rapping" sound, and marmot, a term for the grotesque door knockers in vogue at the time. "Craunch" is an archaic term meaning 'to chew' or 'crunch'. In Modern French, croquer usually means "to crunch" (cf. croque monsieur); its use in this idiom is a survival from the Middle French meaning of croquer, crocquer, which meant "to slap, hit, strike".

Tristan Bernard wrote a very short comedy with a similar name, L'Anglais tel qu'on le parle (1899). Ionesco's La Cantatrice chauve (1950) is mostly made of lines used out-of-context from inter-lingual conversation books. British comedy television series Monty Python's Flying Circus made use of the theme of the mistranslating guide in the sketch "Dirty Hungarian Phrasebook" (1970), which may have been inspired by English as She Is Spoke.[9]

Phrase examples

In addition to the examples above, Carolino managed to create a number of words which added to the book's unintentionally comic effect. Many can be found in the "Familiar Dialogues" section and include the above "Sook here if I knew to tame hix".

Publication history

Related titles

The phrase inspired some other publications, notably:

Contemporary allusions

The phrase English as she is spoke is nowadays used allusively, in a form of linguistic play, as a stereotypical example of bad English grammar.[14]

In January 1864, then US President Abraham Lincoln and Secretary of State William H. Seward laughed as Lincoln's private secretary John Hay read aloud from the book.[15] The book has been cited as one example of many diversions that Lincoln used to lighten his heart and mind from the weight of the US Civil War and his cabinet's political infighting.[16]

The Monty Python sketch "Dirty Hungarian Phrasebook" is a take on the idea, in which a publisher created a Hungarian–English phrasebook with deliberately mistranslated phrases.[9]

The English prog rock band Cardiacs used passages from the book in their 1999 album Guns, most notably in the songs "Cry Wet Smile Dry" and "Sleep All Eyes Open."[17]

A more subtle reference occurs in Series 3, Episode 10 "The Affair at the Victory Ball" of the series "Agatha Christie's Poirot." This episode ends with Poirot offering to give Inspector Japp "my personal copy of 'The English as She Should be Spoken.'"[18]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ The original full title is O novo guia da conversação em portuguez e inglez, ou Escolha de dialogos familiares sôbre varios assumptos,[1] archaic Portuguese for "The new conversational guide in Portuguese and English, or Choice of familiar dialogues on many subjects".

References

  1. ^ a b Fonseca, José da (May 29, 1855). "O novo guia da conversação, em portuguez e inglez: ou, Escolha de dialogos familiares sôbre varios assumptos". Va. J.P. Aillaud, Monlon e Ca. Archived from the original on April 19, 2021. Retrieved October 2, 2020 – via Google Books.
  2. ^ "The Collins Library: The Mystery of Pedro Carolino". Archived from the original on 2002-04-15. Retrieved 2009-01-15.
  3. ^ "The Origins of English as She is Spoke". Archived from the original on 2003-02-02. Retrieved 2009-01-15.
  4. ^ "The Evolution of 'English as She is Spoke'". Archived from the original on 2002-12-07. Retrieved 2009-01-15.
  5. ^ Fonseca, José da; Carolino, Pedro (May 29, 1855). "O novo guia da conversação, em portuguez e inglez; ou, Escolha de dialogos familiares sôbre varios assumptos;". Paris, Va. J.P. Aillaud, Monlon e Ca. – via Internet Archive.
  6. ^ Mark Twain (1883). Introduction to The New Guide of the Conversation in Portuguese and English . p. 239.
  7. ^ "Scan of 1883 printed version; p. 60". Archived from the original on 2009-06-16. Retrieved 2021-06-13.
  8. ^ "English as she is spoke - Introduction to the British edition". www.exclassics.com. Archived from the original on 2021-03-08. Retrieved 2020-05-29.
  9. ^ a b Tucker Leighty-Phillips (June 29, 2016). "How a Portuguese-to-English Phrasebook Became a Cult Comedy Sensation". Atlas Obscura. Archived from the original on 2018-11-06. Retrieved December 24, 2018.
  10. ^ English as she is spoke (1883) Archived 2009-06-16 at the Wayback Machine, "Related: English as she is Taught by Caroline B. Le Row (1887)."
  11. ^ Scheer, Christopher M. (2007). Fin-de-Siècle Britain: Imperialism and Wagner in the Music of Gustav Holst (Thesis). University of Michigan. pp. 162–163. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.624.8355. Archived from the original on 19 April 2021. Retrieved 16 September 2020.
  12. ^ "Elvish as She Is Spoke, by Carl F. Hostetter" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 2020-01-20. Retrieved 2020-02-25.
  13. ^ "Rails as she is spoke web site". Archived from the original on 2014-12-18. Retrieved 2014-09-11.
  14. ^ Sampson, Rodney; Smith, Colin (1997). And now for something completely different: Dictionary of allusions in British English. Hueber. p. 324. ISBN 3-19-002468-5.
  15. ^ Seward, Frederick W. (1891). Seward at Washington as Senator and Secretary of State a memoir of his life, with selections from his letters, 1861–1872. Derby and Miller. p. 208.
  16. ^ Goodwin, Doris Kearns (2005). Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln. Simon and Schuster Paperbacks. p. 600. ISBN 978-0-7432-7075-5.
  17. ^ "Cardiacs – Cry Wet Smile Dry Lyrics". Genius. Retrieved 2023-09-05.
  18. ^ ""Poirot" The Affair at the Victory Ball". IMDb. Retrieved 2024-02-08.

External links

Wikisource has original text related to this article:
English As She Is Spoke
Look up as she is spoke in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.