Futility Closet

English As She Is Spoke is the worst Portuguese-English phrasebook ever written — and the best. The Portuguese authors apparently didn’t speak English themselves, so they used a Portuguese-French dictionary mechanically to translate a French-English phrasebook. The results are sublime:

• “Take out the live coals with the hand of the cat.”
• “A bad arrangement is better than a process.”
• “He has fond the knuckle of the business.”
• “Friendship of a child is water into a basket.”
• “The stone as roll not heap up not foam.”
• “To craunch the marmoset.”

Mark Twain wrote, “Nobody can add to the absurdity of this book, nobody can imitate it successfully, nobody can hope to produce its fellow; it is perfect.”