History Woolseyism / Literature

** Say what you will about Creator/AkeOhlmarks's Swedish translation (and there is much to be said: see that page), "Vidstige" is an ''inspired'' choice for "Strider".

-->''The earth and al that it holdeth, do to the lorde belonge:\\

* In ''Blog/WhatIf 2'', one of the illustrations for "Toasty Warm" has a stick figure say, "This is the worst idea for heating a house since, or with, sliced bread." The Swedish translator decided that this joke was completely untranslatable, and so replaced it with a Swedish pun about throwing a toaster into a lake.

* The Norwegian translation of ''Literature/TheSagaOfDarrenShan'' is kinda like an adaption rather than a translation, and the translator seem to have [[BlindIdiotTranslation relied]] on [[http://www.tritrans.net/ TriTrans]] a little too much. Vampaneze is changed into vampan. Mr. Tall is changed to Herr Høy[[note]]using herr (which means Mr.) is okay, but Høy can also mean [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substance_intoxication high]] and hay, which neither fit him; lang (which directly means long) would have fitted him way better.[[/note]] Mr. Desmond Tiny is changed into Matt Order which sounds more like a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masochist masochistic]] judge than a creep, and when abbreviated (M. Order) it can be read as morder (murderer), but that does not fit the last book's title. [[spoiler:R.V. claims he's a rightful vampaneze, being it just as much as the other vampaneze. In Norwegian he calls himself "rettferdig vampan"; while rettferdig can mean "rightful", it mainly means "fair", which doesn't exactly fit as he felt that the world had been unfair to him. The translator would better have used "rettmessig", which actually means only rightful.]]

*** In the Spanish version, George "misses his lentil". The pun here is than "lenteja" ("lentil") rhymes with "oreja" ("ear").

** In ''The Long Haul'', after the school bans the Underpants Bandits books, some kids sneak in their own copies. One kid brought in a Japanese version of a book and an illustration is shown of it. When the book was translated into Japanese, the bootleg copy was changed to Chinese.* In ''Blog/WhatIf 2'', one of the illustrations for "Toasty Warm" has a stick figure say, "This is the worst idea for heating a house since, or with, sliced bread." The Swedish translator decided that this joke was completely untranslatable, and so replaced it with a Swedish pun about throwing a toaster into a lake.

* In ''Literature/DiaryOfAWimpyKidRodrickRules'', a student named Peter Uteger is mocked for his initials being "P.U." The German translation renames him to Peter Puttmann, and his initials are "P.P.", which sounds like pipi (pee).
* In ''Blog/WhatIf 2'', one of the illustrations for "Toasty Warm" has a stick figure say, "This is the worst idea for heating a house since, or with, sliced bread." The Swedish translator decided that this joke was completely untranslatable, and so replaced it with a Swedish pun about throwing a toaster into a lake.

** Unfortunately, there are times Fitzgerald failed, as when Odysseus interprets Persephonë's dream, saying that there are two gates by which dreams can leave the realm of Morpheus. True dreams come through the gate of horn and false dream come through the gate of ivory. This means nothing in English, but in the ancient Greek, "horn" sounds very much like "fulfill", so prophetic dreams come through the gate of horn. "Ivory", meanwhile, is similar to "deceive", and you can't trust dreams from that gate. He's trying to say that her dream of his death ([[UnreliableNarrator if she had such a dream]]) was a lie. Maybe Fitzgerald could have changed it to a gate carved with lilies for dreams that are lies and a gate carved with futas for dreams that foretell the future...

* In ''Literature/WhatIf 2'', one of the illustrations for "Toasty Warm" has a stick figure say, "This is the worst idea for heating a house since, or with, sliced bread." The Swedish translator decided that this joke was completely untranslatable, and so replaced it with a Swedish pun about throwing a toaster into a lake.

** Frigyes Karinthy's CultClassic Hungarian translation of ''Literature/WinnieThePooh'' is also highly favored over the original for its extensive use of more "colorful" expressions (no, not swearing, but things like using "barked Pooh triumphantly" in place of "said Pooh"). Fans of the translated version tend to see the original as uninspired and dry, some even calling it downright annoying.

** The French translation of ''Goblet of Fire'' takes advantage of the [[HeyYou differing forms of second-person address]] in their language by changing Ron's question about Snape and Karkaroff being on a first-name basis to why they use ''tu'' with each other.

* ''Literature/HanselAndGretel'' is about two kids who meet a witch who intends to eat them for dinner. While some Eastern European translations ''do'' keep this intact, a few have actually localised the witch to be BabaYaga - a familiar more known in Eastern Europe and Russia than Western Europe.

* In ''Literature/WhatIf 2'', one of the illustrations for "Toasty Warm" has a stick figure say, "This is the worst idea for heating a house since, or with, sliced bread." The Swedish translator decided that this joke was completely untranslatable, and so replaced it with a Swedish pun.

** Ironically, plenty of subtle meaning is actually lost in translating ''Literature/TheBible'''s ancient languages according to overall meaning instead of word-for-word. A well-known example is UsefulNotes/{{Jesus}}'s face-off with the Pharisees in John 8, where they ask Jesus how He could possibly think He is older than Moses. The Worldwide English (New Testament) translation of the response goes: ''Jesus answered, "I tell you the truth. I already was before Abraham was born."'', which while accurate in conveying the blunt meaning, misses out on the (intentional) back-reference of other translations. For example, the New International Version translation: ''"I tell you the truth," Jesus answered, "before Abraham was born, '''I am'''."'' This is a reference to the name of {{God}} (''God said to Moses, "'''I am''' who am."'' - Exodus 3:14), and thus signified that Jesus considered Himself God... Which explains why the Pharisees immediately flew into a rage and tried to stone Jesus (for blasphemy) when they had earlier just put up with being called the children of the devil with far less outrage.

** Ironically, plenty of subtle meaning is actually lost in translating ''Literature/TheBible'' 's ancient languages according to overall meaning instead of word-for-word. A well-known example is UsefulNotes/{{Jesus}}'s face-off with the Pharisees in John 8, where they ask Jesus how He could possibly think He is older than Moses. The Worldwide English (New Testament) translation of the response goes: ''Jesus answered, "I tell you the truth. I already was before Abraham was born."'', which while accurate in conveying the blunt meaning, misses out on the (intentional) back-reference of other translations. For example, the New International Version translation: ''"I tell you the truth," Jesus answered, "before Abraham was born, '''I am'''."'' This is a reference to the name of {{God}} (''God said to Moses, "'''I am''' who am."'' - Exodus 3:14), and thus signified that Jesus considered Himself God... Which explains why the Pharisees immediately flew into a rage and tried to stone Jesus (for blasphemy) when they had earlier just put up with being called the children of the devil with far less outrage.

* The J. T. Bealby translation of Creator/ETAHoffmann's "Literature/TheSandman" repeatedly calls the creepy door-to-door salesman Coppola a "hawker" of oculars and glasses (which he refers to as "eyes"). This resounds beautifully with the gruesome tale of Nathanael's old nurse, who described the Sandman as a bird-like creature who hunts for eyes—a hawk is a bird of prey, and "to hawk" also means "to hunt in the style of a hawk". But it is entirely a clever translation; in the original, Coppola is just a "Wetterglashändler", which does not strike any such associations.

* The eponymous whale in ''Literature/MobyDick'' has several possible translations used in [[UsefulNotes/ChineseDialectsAndAccents Chinese languages]], including phonic translations "莫比敵" (Mò bǐ dí) in Mandarin, and "無比敵" (mou4 bei2 dik6) in Cantonese, which both roughly means "[[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast an enemy without rival/compare]]", befitting the whale's fearsome reputation.

** Ron's "[[UranusIsShowing can I have a look at Uranus too, Lavender?]]" joke from ''Goblet of Fire'' was changed in many translations since a lot of languages lack the pun from Uranus's name. The French translation changes it to the moon - in French it has the same connotations as "mooning" in English. The Danish translation changes it to Lavender talking about her ending got an unknown aspect, to which Ron replies "can I see an aspect of your end too?" The Polish translation was even better where Professor Trelawney describes Uranus as "an important celestial body". Ron asks if he can have a look at Lavender's body too. The first Italian translation just ignored the joke and translated the line literally, while the 2013 rerelease went with the "celestial body" joke as the Polish version.

** The Hebrew translation has the pun turned a little more vulgar. There's a sign at the dam that describes it as having "בטון מזוין" (''beton mezoyan''), a technical term meaning "reinforced concrete". However in Hebrew the word "מזוין" (''mezoyan'') has the [[DoubleEntendre double meaning]] as a slang term for "[[PrecisionFStrike fucked]]" (or "screwed"). So in the Hebrew version, a bunch of preteens and teenagers are joking about the "fucking concrete".

** The Hebrew translation has the pun turned a little more vulgar. There's a sign at the dam that describes it as having "בטון מזוין" (''beton mezoyan''), a technical term meaning "reinforced concrete". However in Hebrew the word "מזוין" (''mezoyan'') has the [[DoubleEntendre double meaning]] as a slang term for "''[[PrecisionFStrike fucked]]"''. So in the Hebrew version, a bunch of preteens and teenagers are joking about the "fucking concrete".