I've recently been annoyed by emails from a guy at work, addressed to a general mailing list. He's rather strident, and somewhat critical in his tone (he's French - who'da thunkit?), and yet his English is imperfect. I wanted to reply to him in the same imperfect style of English, but every time I tried to compose something, it came out sounding rather stilted. So, thought I, perhaps I could enlist AltaVista's famed Babelfish!

Here's the original:

I think your guesses are correct about our JavaScript interpreter, but you should check with Tony for the latest

which Babelfish rendered in French as:

Je pense vos conjectures suis correct au sujet de notre interprete de Javascript, mais vous devriez verifier avec Tony le plus en retard

So far so good. Now let's turn that back to English:

I think your conjectures am correct about our interpret of Javascript, but would owe you verify with late Tony more

Hmm. Pretty good, but it's starting to unravel, which, of course, is like a red rag to a bull to me. Let's translate it into German now. Incidentally, it's a shame Tony had to die, but it's all in a good cause.

Ich denke Ihre Vermutungen, die morgens, die ueber unser korrekt sind, vom Javascript deuten, aber wuerde Sie ueberpruefe mit spaetem Tony mehr verdanken

(See where the "morgens" bit comes from? The poor Babelfish could only interpret the weirdly verbed "am" as the conventional abbreviation for "ante meridiem". So now the whole thing takes place in the morning). So, for good measure, back to English, though, at this point, it's hardly fair to really call it English any more ...

I think your assumptions, which interpret in the morning, which are correct over ours, from the Javascript, but will you examine with late Tony more to owe

Damn! This thing is clearly on a roll. With cheese, and a slice of tomato. And a garnish of psilocybe ... so what now? Clearly, given that we've tried French and German, and I don't know Italian, Korean or Japanese (which doesn't stop me from speaking those languages, you understand, especially when drunk. Amazing how alcohol gives one such a flair for language, don't you think?), but I do know a little Spanish (she cleans my office), so let's spin the wheel again:

Pienso sus asunciones, que interpretan por la man~ana, que son excedente correcto el nuestros, del Javascript, solamente voluntad que usted examina con u'ltimo Tony m'as para deber

And finally, back to the mother tongue.

I think its assumptions, that they interpret by the tomorrow, that is excessive correct ours, of the Javascript, only will that you examine with I complete Tony but for having

Perfecto!