Hi.
I have just got back home (Hampshire, UK) from a holiday in France.
While I was there I found in a newsagent's shop a CD ROM about the
French National Automobile Museum in Mulhouse. As it wasn't expensive, I
bought it. It was headed "International Edition", and promised that it
was in French, with German, English, Italian and Spanish translations.
The descriptions of the individual cars appear to be accurate, and the
english is grammatically OK. The remained of the text, about the
history of Bugatti, The Schlumpf brothers and the Museum itself appear
to have been translated from the french by a computer or by translating
word for word with a dictionary. Some of the translations are
absolutely wonderful (and even funnier if you speak french). I felt I
just had to share them with someone.
My favourite examples from the lexicon:-
Coupe: Car shut to two doors and two positions
Axle: Axis receiving a wheel to every extremity and supporting a vehicle
(a car includes in general two axles)
Limousine: Automotive closed big one to four doors and six ices
Omnibus: Who serves all stations, name given to a gentle bodywork of
transport in common.
Racer: Very fast car of sport or of competition
Relationship: Designate the speeds of the car (a car to five
relationships possesses five different speeds)
Roadster: Open car to stetch out profile
Crankshaft: Piece of motor in forms of crank on who was about the piston
by the intermediary of the rod.
Cabriolet: Supplied with car a top and therefore convertible
Supercharger: Device of feeding up of a motor by elevation of the
pressure of the air or of mashes of feeding.
It explains the educational wing of the museum - "In this piece, the
children could tinker in disassembling and in the tonic entirely
Sidonie, a car in drinks to their equipped ladder some elementary organs
(simplified) of the true car: transmission tree, direction, box of
speed."
I won't quote any more as I'm sure it's all copyright, and you might
want to buy it yourself!
Hope you are all enjoying driving your "open cars to strech out
profile".
Dave Wagstaff
Pre-litigation Westfield SE
Imminent Morgan Plus 4
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