Monday 20 September 2010

wafer-thin mint (and lazy cv)


Before the hols, after trying (to no avail) to get through to the Embassy of Ukraine, I just decided to go and check their website. I found the English button (Cyrillic is very pretty but of no much use to me), and my eyes immediately moved towards the last quote from an article on Kiev "As Warm Chestnuts Embrace you…" Loved it
I decided to machine-translate the original Cyrillic sentence again (just for kicks, I had time, too much of it.) What I got this time round was "Once in Brown Embrace, Let Yourself..." I pissed myself laughing and gave up. The latter was by no means as poetic as the former but we were entering seriously wrong innuendo territory. I thought, Ukraine, here we come.
 
The above was our very first contact with Ukrainian English. On the plane on our way to Kiev. How wonderful is that.
Later on we came across the correct but much less amusing version of the peppermint-flavoured toothpick.

(P.S. This is not meant as a mockery against anyone or anywhere in particular. 
I just love my c.k. watt-type boo boos. I also just read cv's theme this week is "humour" (a bit erratic on the old cv, as you know), so hey, click on that last link, if you wish.)

22 comments:

  1. Haha! I love the papermint!! Very cool.....in a minty sort of way...

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  2. Funny... Have a nice trip.
    !-)

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  3. I'm afraid these wouldn't do for some octopus to the party...

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  4. The little b&b down the road had a brand new wooden sign carved, it read "Bad & Breakfast" - pretty good for italian english:)

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  5. oh, that's just priceless, francesca.
    "the good, the bad and the breakfast".

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  6. Awww... damn, I've never seen those "papermint" toothpicks on my flights to/from Ukraine. I did get some rather funky coasters on my last flight there!

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  7. I like translator very much... It's like a "generator" of mysterious quotes ;)

    Love the toothpicks too !

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  8. ... not so bad !!!

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  9. love it. how were the toothpicks?

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  10. they were rather cool in a minty sort of way, as di suggests ;)
    funky coasters. how funky is funky, though? I'm curious now.

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  11. You have a wonderful knack to bring the funny moments to life!

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  12. hi, and PS, thanks for your comment, Yes, about Shakespeare, I wrote you back a confession and complement, but not sure if you return there to see it, just to let you know!

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  13. but i found most of your posts humorous! and if you wanted a "cv" (curriculum vitae) for your life, couldn't you just sum it up as "humorous"? am i being presumptuous?

    cheers!

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  14. Hee, hee, hee. Maybe the paper tastes like mint too?! Translating from foreign languages is often very funny, except when translating from Dutch to English, of course. Somehow the "funny" ceases to make sense in English.

    Love your humorous CV today! Cheers~

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  15. Very funny! You know, sometimes with my english, I feel like I could have been the one designing the ukrainien papermint!

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  16. An airline company handing out those...mmm. I think I would have left the plain quicker than usual. You know what I mean?

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what's that I hear (read rather)?