Saturday, March 19, 2011

Bad Translations

Depending upon a mechanical tool like Google Translate to translate from one language to another can result in some interesting translations.

Here is a case in point. This morning I was reading on the Blade Forums about a new bushcraft knife from Mora of Sweden that came with a firesteel attached to its sheath.


The original page on the knife at the company's website was in Swedish. Someone helpfully posted this link which translated the page from Swedish to English. The third paragraph was translated thusly:
On the rugged vagina is a well-lit room for the steel and the diamond will be easy to sharpen the blade. It is easy to replace the two included bältesclipsen that lets you choose how you want to carry your knife.
The proper translation from Mora of Sweden's own page is this.
The robust sheath is provided with a well thought out space for the firesteel and completed with a diamond sharpener, making it easy to sharpen the knife blade. A black handle with high-friction grip gives the finishing touch to the Bushcraft Survival, a knife that suits a tough lifestyle!
And we sometimes wonder how international incidents come to pass. Wonder no more.

By the way, if you are looking for good, reasonably-priced knives to use outdoors or to put in your bug-out kit, the Mora knives are some of the best you can find. They are sharp, strong, and well-made. I probably have a dozen of them in various styles. I can recommend them without any hesitation and can also recommend Ragnar's Ragweed Forge as the place to buy them. He also has a full catalog of other Scandinavian knives including Finnish puukko and leuko knives. For the price of the cheap crap bought at a discount store, you can have a real knife made with good steel that will last.

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