In advance of the ATA conference and all of those e-mail auto-responders being turned on, Wendy Hoover of eLocale sent this link to the CTA list serve. The article, from the BBC’s website, tells the woeful tale of a road sign in Wales (“No entry for heavy goods vehicles. Residential site only”) for which the Welsh translation, appearing below the English, reads “I am not in the office at the moment. Please send any work to be translated.”
The story is amusing, and it’s not impossible to imagine how the error initially occurred, but the real takeaway is the admonition from Welsh journalist Dylan Iorwerth, “When they’re proofing signs, they should really use someone who speaks Welsh.”