Mark Holtom (aka Kingbeard)Sep 22, 2025

This has got to be one of the best. In Wales, UK, there is a legal requirement for road signs to be in both English and Welsh. So, in this case, the official of the Highways department emailed the English wording to the translator and, after receiving a reply, proceeded to have the sign made and installed.

Unfortunately, a few weeks later, Welsh-speaking drivers began to call up to point out that the Welsh reads..... "I am currently out of the office. Please submit any work to the translation team."

Show threadThe SkeptatorSep 22, 2025
@MarkHoltom The complete story: https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/man-responsible-welsh-translation-gaffe-15214716
The man responsible for the most infamously bad Welsh road sign translation

Andy Kirby was working for Swansea council's highways department when his Welsh translation gaffe went viral

Wales Online
Show thread�Sep 22, 2025

@skeptator @MarkHoltom and this dude didnt even make a mistake.

when you contact a translation company and you receive only welsh text in roughly the same length as thr text you wanted to translate, what should he have done better?

Show threadMichael WeissSep 22, 2025

@utf_7 @skeptator @MarkHoltom you take the received text and send it to a Welsh-to-English translator. If you get back something relatively similar to what you started with, you can have confidence in the results.

Though there's a fun story about one such case, where the English input was "Out of sight, out of mind." After the round trip: "Invisible insanity."

Show thread�Sep 22, 2025
@mweiss @skeptator @MarkHoltom name 1 company that is paying for translation twice
Show threadThe Skeptator
@utf_7 @mweiss @MarkHoltom A simple dictionary could have helped.
Sep 22, 2025 at 6:53pmWeb
Show thread�Sep 22, 2025
@skeptator @mweiss @MarkHoltom i get your point but i dont agree