March 14, 2009

¿Dónde está el traductor?

Quico says: ONIDEX, Venezuela's INS equivalent, has apparently decided there's no need to wait for visitors to actually, y'know, land in the country before starting to appall them:
"ONIDEX has again changed Venezuela's immigration landing card [the ones they hand out before landing] and this time, in translating the questions, they've taken a few liberties with the language of Shakespeare. Maybe it's a ploy to discombobulate the Empire, or just an oversight, but it was hard to miss that they now ask you for your pasaport number. Vuelo becomes fligh or dlight, depending on the question, but never flight. Apparently, estudiante just looks more genuine when you render it as Estudent, just as "Type of Accomodation" looks more real if you translate it as Tipe. The best one was moneda, which they render literally as coin. Apparently "currency" is a bit of technical jargon normal people wouldn't understand..."
As Teodoro once said, chavismo sees every day as a golden opportunity to unlearn something...