This is one that the publisher of the below-mentioned magazine really should have seen coming. There’s an adage in use on many newspapers: never print anything you don’t understand yourself, however well you think you’ve had it checked. And here’s why.
Chinese ‘classical poem’ was brothel ad
There were red faces on the editorial board of one of Germany’s top scientific institutions, the Max Planck Institute, after it ran the text of a handbill for a Macau strip club on the front page of its latest journal. Editors had hoped to find an elegant Chinese poem to grace the cover of a special issue, focusing on China, of the MaxPlanckForschung journal, but instead of poetry they ran a text effectively proclaiming “Hot Housewives in action!” on the front of the third-quarter edition. Their “enchanting and coquettish performance” was highly recommended. Full story plus picture of the offending cover here…
I heard a lovely story recently about some aquaintance of some employee brought in to do a translation of an educational language resource into Chinese for a prestigious publisher… only to render the phrase ‘conversation partner’ into something perhaps best described as friend-with-benefits…
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