History Main / EitherWorldDominationOrSomethingAboutBananas

* In ''[[http://disneycomics.free.fr/Ducks/Rosa/show.php?loc=AR143 The Curse of Nostrildamus]]'' by Creator/DonRosa, Donald Duck and Scrooge find the tomb of the eponymous seer and Donald tries to translate the text written on the grave:

* In ''ComicBook/SergioAragonesDestroysDC'', Franchise/{{Batman}} sees the bat-signal in the sky:

* On ''WesternAnimation/TheAdventuresOfJimmyNeutronBoyGenius'' Sheen did this once, when he believed he could read hieroglyphics simply because they looked similar to writing from his favorite TV show. They clearly were not the same. They play with this by having Sheen start off by reading it in a fashion that could believably be called translating it, and just when everyone's starting to go slack-jaw in shock, Sheen's story veers off into... well, [[CloudCuckooLander Sheen being Sheen]], proving he had no idea what he was doing.
-->'''Sheen:''' "The queen flew on the wings of an eagle. She had a VCR, but wanted a DVD and the gods sent munchkins to hypnotize her water-skis, so she took her peanut butter sandwich for a walk. The end."

* ''WesternAnimation/TheDeep'': In "The Baltic Sea Anomaly", the Aronnax has sailed in a radio dead zone and Will is watching Keiko explain something to the kids outside the sub:

-->-- '''Cosmo''', ''WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddParents'', "WesternAnimation/AbraCatastrophe"

-->-- '''Cosmo''', ''WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddParents''

** In ''Literature/InterestingTimes'', Creator/TerryPratchett tells us that in various places around the Discworld, the word "Aargh!" can mean anything from "Your wife is a big hippo!" to "I would like to eat your foot!" to "Quick, extra boiling oil!" This ends in a RunningGag throughout the book where people misinterpret other people's screams to various effects. ("I'm not even married!") This likely parodies tonal language families such as Chinese, where what would sound like one word in English could be translated in up to four completely different ways in Mandarin, depending on tone. Cantonese would have up to ''nine'' possible translations based on tone, and potentially even more since homophones still exist on top of tonality.

* A common example when studying theology, specifically, possible translation errors in the bible, the phrase "[[TheProblemWithPenIsland GODISNOWHERE]]" is used.[[note]]Many early manuscript writing styles completely dispensed with punctuation, even the spaces between words.[[/note]] This can be interpreted both as "God is now here" or "God is nowhere". Simply put, Hebrew can be a bit confusing to translate if you don't know the context.

* Translating any language where large numbers of words can have several definitions can sometimes pose problems surprisingly similar to this one. Latin is a good example of this: it has a comparatively smaller vocabulary than English - which in turn means that it's commonplace to run into words with six or more definitions, some of which are quite dissimilar. This means that translating small phrases divorced from their surrounding context can be particularly challenging. A related problem is that, even if there's enough context to be reasonably certain of the writer's intended meaning, it may be impossible to convey the full meaning in English, since writers sometimes intend multiple meanings of a given word, and there is not always any word in English that conveys all those meanings. For example, an English pun on the word "bat" would not work in German, which uses the word "Schläger" to refer to the sporting equipment and the word "Fledermaus" to refer to the flying mammal. This is one reason translators sometimes [[FootnoteFever footnote]] their work.

** In ''Literature/InterestingTimes'', Creator/TerryPratchett tells us that in various places around the Discworld, the word "Aargh!" can mean anything from "Your wife is a big hippo!" to "I would like to eat your foot!" to "Quick, extra boiling oil!" This ends in a RunningGag throughout the book where people misinterpret other people's screams to various effects. ("I'm not even married!") This likely parodies tonal languages such as Chinese, where what would sound like one word in English could be translated in up to four completely different ways in Mandarin, depending on tone. Cantonese would have ''nine'' possible translations. (Even more, considering the abundance of homophones.)

** In ''Literature/MakingMoney'', Moist and Adora try to get a translation of an inscription related to some ancient golems from the lost city of Um. According to their expert, the Umnian language is very context-based and could mean a number of things, but seems to refer to "four golden golems". This worries Moist, who's been trying to convince the people of Ankh-Morpork to abandon the gold standard. Then shortly before the golems arrive, Moist is informed [[spoiler: the translation actually refers to "four ''thousand'' golems". Sure enough, Lord Vetinari and the various movers and shakers of Ankh Morpork are soon arguing about what to do with the small army of ten-foot tall LostTechnology golems that have surrounded the city and are awaiting orders.]]
** In ''Literature/MonstrousRegiment'', Vimes gives the titular soldiers a thumbs-up before their court martial. Being from a foreign country, they're not sure what it means. One of them theorizes that it's a good luck gesture, but adds that in Klatch, it might also mean "I hope your donkey explodes."

*** In the end, the Bajorans don't really suffer horribly... but [[HilariousInHindsight Kira is seen eating a fruit salad near the beginning of the episode]].

* Referenced in one episode of ''Series/StargateSG1'':

[[folder:Music]]
* From ''Music/LesLuthiers''' ''Radio Tertulia'', the interview with "London Inspection" is full of this.
[[/folder]]