Bizarre news story

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I've started using Google Newsstand to catch up with the news in the morning, and it usually feeds stories from news sources I've heard of, but this morning one of the top 5 stories seems to be a word by word translation from - I'm guessing - French,. Or possibly from English to French and then back to English.

Caveat: the story is horrific, the apparent murder of an au pair and burning her body in a bonfire.

The translator has decided "terrace" is "level" and "burned" is "consumed", leading to this horrible opening sentence

The ex of a pop star will be taken into custody for further judgment the previous evening on doubt of slaughtering her French caretaker and consuming her body in the garden of her £900,000 level,

Other notable phrases :
  • ‘The couple who lived in the level were not the friendliest combine – we would hear them having truly boisterous contentions beneath.’
  • whose previous accomplice was a one-time individual from an outstanding kid band
  • Via web-based networking media, Miss Quider postured for glitzy pictures on evenings out at different eateries
  • Analyst Inspector Richard Leonard stated: ‘I might want to speak to those in and around the range to offer facts.’


 

deptfordmarmoset

Full time tea drinker
Location
Armonmy Way
Ginny Weasley should probably stick to quidditch; I had a quick look at another of her stories and it gives a similar impression of language alienated from itself. Incidentally, I speak reasonable French and I can't find anything that resonates with French to English translation. Or repeated retranslation for that matter. Very odd.
 

alicat

Legendary Member
Location
Staffs
I do think it is translated from English to French and back again. I suspect 'level' is supposed to be 'flat'. 'Porch' is 'terrace'.

I once read a bizarre story in a Belgian newspaper linked to driving tests in Birmingham. Mainly made bizarre because I was guessing what the Flemish meant. Must have been a slow news day.
 

srw

It's a bit more complicated than that...
There's another strange story on the site here:
http://weekfacts.com/2017/09/female...er-apartment-in-arkansas-police-arrested-her/

"An Arkansas teacher purportedly engaged in sexual relations with four understudies... Matt Wright, director of Marked Tree School District, said Goline, who is hitched, conceded she had intercourse with understudies to her vital"

It's a very strange site indeed. There's a postal address which appears to be a bungalow in Michigan: https://goo.gl/maps/C6VQ7xo24e12

I suspect someone is scraping news, probably without a licence, feeding it through an auto-translate program, again probably without a licence, and formatting it as a webpage. Whether it's a sophisticated research programme or just a school project is difficult to tell.
 

alicat

Legendary Member
Location
Staffs
Have I gone to sleep for a long time and woken up on 1st April?
 

Levo-Lon

Guru
Gaviscon far East translation is still right up there..

" like having Fireman come in mouth"

I guess I'll stick with the indigestion then...
 
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