My Hovercraft Is Full Of Eels

If you are confused by that statement above, be not ashamed.  A very short time ago I was also as ignorant of it, but I can promise you enlightenment if you read further.  

I happened across this phrase I know not where.  It might have been in a movie or a tv show I watched.  It could have been on a blog or in an article I read.  But wherever it was that I heard/read it, the phrase was unexplained and completely inexplicable.  Being curious I looked it up and found far more than I bargained for.

This video will explain.  (and for those of you who need to know what something is before you watch it, it is a Monty Python sketch.  As such it is somewhat naughty.  Just so you know.)

As you can see, the trouble arises from a phrasebook that does not give accurate translations.  Ha.

But as I was learning all about the mysteries of the Dirty Hungarian Phrasebook, I also was made aware of a real life equivalent: 'English As She Is Spoke,' a Portuguese phrasebook which was published in 1883.  Not only does this book actually exist, but its phrases almost surpass the carefully planned idiocy that is the Monty Python sketch.

Here are a few of my favorites.

Help-to a little most the better your terms

Have you forgeted me?

Dress my horse.

Why you no helps me to?

Take the bloom’s perfume.

You hear the bird’s gurgling?

        ‘For A Conversation With A Hair Dresser’

            -Your razors are them well?

            Yes Sir.

            -Comb-me quickly, don’t put me so much pomatum.  What news tell me?  All hair dressers are news-mongers.

            Sir, I have no heard any thing

Who I would be if I was know it!

It is difficult to enjoy well so much several languages

He sin in trouble water

He has a good beak

With a tongue one go to Roma

Take out the live coals with the hand of the cat

Burn the politeness

This wood is full of thief’s

He has spit in my coat

I have mind to vomit

Have you understanded?

Go Here if you would like to read the entire book in all its glory.  

 

And if you didn't laugh a single time while reading that then you must have had your sense of humor surgically removed by angry clowns.  I'm so sorry.

So as I leave you now I must ask, 'Have you understanded?'  For 'It is difficult to enjoy well so much several languages.'

:)

This wood is full of thief's.

Heehee.


(and congrats to me!  This is my 100th blog post!  Whee!!!!)