Worst translations: 'Paul is dead' meatballs and other brilliant mistakes

Twitter users share their favourite examples of multilingual mix-ups

translation
(Image credit: David Pursehouse/Flickr)

Guests dining at the Erbil International Hotel in northern Iraq were invited to help themselves to a heaty dish of "Paul is dead", thanks to a bizarre translation error.

The label, spotted by Twitter user Hend Amry, was placed in front of a dish of meatballs in the luxury Kurdistan hotel.

However, Arabic speaker Amry was able to shed some light on the convoluted linguistic explanation for the misunderstanding.

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Amry shared another image of a well-meaning translation gone wrong, this one hanging above a poultry butcher:

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The mix-up inspired other multilingual tweeters to share their own favourite facepalm translation moments.

There was this classic cross-border bungle, when Swansea council officials mistook a Welsh translator's automated out-of-office email for the translation they were after.

The result? A bilingual road sign which told English speakers that lorries were prohibited and Welsh speakers: "I am not in the office at the moment. Send any work to be translated".

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And then there was the time the client wanted a warning sign on a tanker to say "No smoking" in Arabic - and the translator obliged, oh-so-literally:

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Other inspired contributions included an unusual suggested method of consuming dessert:

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As well as a menu item you definitely wouldn't want to order for your first meeting with the in-laws:

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Some of the mistakes weren't only a linguistic headache, they were downright sinister:

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While others should definitely be fixed, pronto:

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