Why didn't she notice the trap door?

[pete75]

Why do you keep on rephrasing this as if it's merely "don't like" rather than grossly offensive? Are you one of those who thinks the Equality Act is "nanny state"?

Ok I'll rephrase - just because you find something offensive doesn't mean that a person should be, to use your own words,punished or corrected. Who do you thing you are? What makes you the arbiter of what others can or cannot say?

Well, what makes you any better an authority? Who are we to contradict Jon Snow saying that this is an abusive use of such terms?

I dislike the stupid phrase "nanny state" though I guess you don't as you seem to use the expression freely and for no apparent reason.

I spy an alternative fact! I think I've used the phrase exactly once on this site, quoted above, for the reason above.

If you believe that the contents of a post here is illegal under the Equality act then report it to the authorities.

Not what I believe or wrote. I asked what you thought of it and you're sidestepping instead of answering.

I'm not claiming to be an authority better or otherwise. It's not me who is saying that things I find offensive should be banned censored etc nor that people who say them should be punished. You are.

As for Jon Snow. Either a TV newsreader or a character from Game of Thrones. Whichever one you're referring to doesn't condition my thoughts on this or any other matter.

I think my answer re the equality act showed what I thought of it. It's to tackle stuff that matters not the ramblings of folk on an obscure website. You obviously disagree so what do you think of it.

Did I comment on the number of times you'd said nanny state. I merely said you'd used it freely and for no apparent reason in your post though you are, of course, entitled to use the ridiculous phrase as much as you like.

[thirdcrank]

Cyclists are often stereotyped. IMO, if this thread shows anything, cyclists are not a homogenous group.

[Cyril Haearn]

Ich wuerde kuenftig generell eine englische Version beifuegen wenn ich Deutsch schreibe, vielleicht soll ich beschiedener sein, bin auch nicht perfekt in Deutsch, Danke an R2 fuers Hinweis

In future I will always add an English translation when I use German, maybe I should be careful of showing off, my German is --not-- perfect, thanks to R2 for the note
..
It is one thing to use google translate and quite another to be proficient in two or more languages
..
Reminds me of changing money in Europe before the € was introduced, if one changed money several times one would lose a lot
What happens if a text is gogotransed from English into German into Welsh into Polish and back to English?

Cannae use translate on my smartfon in any case (or do not know how to)

[Cunobelin]

Freedom of speech.....

I have the right to speak. but I also have the right to be offended as well


Things change, morals change, what is acceptable changes.


Imagine going to the BBC and suggesting a comedy with two neighbours, one couple black the other white, and the comedy would be the interplay between the two..... it was prime time television

[100%JR]

It is one thing to use google translate and quite another to be proficient in two or more languages

My Aunty lives in France.She's been there since 1977,is married to a Frenchman,has two sons who've lived there all their lives (despite them being born in Edinburgh)so speaks mainly French daily and now classes English as her 2nd language.A few years ago now I thought I'd be smart and write an email then use Google translate to convert it into French.She sent me a reply saying it was basically gobbledygook I then translated in back from French to English and could not make head nor tail of it
As a result I don't trust Google translate!

[661-Pete]

Google Translate is mainly useful for translating from an unfamiliar language into one's vernacular (for most of us that means, English!). At least you can usually make sense of the output. Going the other way around is likely to spew out only nonsense.

But this sort of thing was happening long before Google. Remember the old joke about an early-generation computer that was asked to translate into Russian "the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak" - and came out with something meaning "there's plenty of vodka but the meat's underdone*..."?

*(or it may have been "overdone" - I can't quite remember)

[Cyril Haearn]

A fuleproof way to check machine translation would be to simply translate it back to the language one first thought of

Eine narrensichere Pruefungsverfahren waere einfach der Text in der Ausgangssprache zurueckuebertragen zu lassen

[[XAP]Bob]

Google Translate is mainly useful for translating from an unfamiliar language into one's vernacular (for most of us that means, English!). At least you can usually make sense of the output. Going the other way around is likely to spew out only nonsense.

But this sort of thing was happening long before Google. Remember the old joke about an early-generation computer that was asked to translate into Russian "the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak" - and came out with something meaning "there's plenty of vodka but the meat's underdone*..."?

*(or it may have been "overdone" - I can't quite remember)

http://www.hutchinsweb.me.uk/MTNI-11-1995.pdf

More often "The vodka is good but the meat is rotten."

[Vorpal]

A fuleproof way to check machine translation would be to simply translate it back to the language one first thought of

Eine narrensichere Pruefungsverfahren waere einfach der Text in der Ausgangssprache zurueckuebertragen zu lassen

That doesn't actually work because people may have contributed different, but still correct things going either way in a translation.

Google might make a muddle of it, yet manage something relatively close to correct going one way, or it might translate it the same, completely incorrect way going there and back again.

Google seems to work okay for basic concepts between English and North American Spanish, and also between Norwegian and English, probably because those get lots of user input. Other languages I've used it for, and more complex concepts, especially compound words, it makes a mess of.

[Mike Sales]

This discussion of machine translation reminds me of my failings with Latin at school.
Translating into Latin I was rubbish, all those conjugations and declensions stumped me. Going the other way I could generally get the tenses and cases well enough to guess the meaning, generalise and turn out good English.
I failed O level badly, but we also took a very odd exam, just for fun. This was CSE Latin, which was mainly Latin to English translation. I did well.
I don't think CSE Latin ever became a widespread test.
I hope this is not too irrelevant, but I see the thread started with a trapdoor, so perhaps just as off topic.