Abusing BabelFish

["Cyril Slobin" <slobin@ice.ru>]

coi rodo

The site http://babelfish.altavista.com does a wonderful job of
translating texts between different languages. Set of languages
supported is impressive. An idea comes to mind to close BabelFish to
itself, i.e. to feed it with it's own output. In other words, to
coerce it to "Broken Phone" AKA "Chinese Whispers" mode. So I've
written a script that does just this. Just two examples:

One:

en When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean
de Wenn ich ein Wort verwende, bedeutet es, gerade was ich es
beschließe, um zu bedeuten
en If I use a word, it means, straight which I it decides, in order to mean
ru Если я использую слово, то оно середины, прямо которые I оно
решает, намереваться
en If I use a word, then it is the middles, directly which I it
decides, to intend
es Si utilizo una palabra, entonces es los middles, a que I él decide,
pensar directamente
en If I use a word, then he is middles, to that I he decides, to think directly
it Se uso una parola, allora è middles, a quello I che decide, pensare
direttamente
fr Si j'emploie un mot, alors il est middles, à cela qu'il décide,
penser directement
el Εάν υιοθετώ μια λέξη, τότε είναι middles, σε αυτό ότι αποφασίζει,
να σκεφτεί άμεσα
en If I adopt a word, then they are middles, in this that it decides,
it thinks immediately

Two:

en When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean.
ru Когда я использую слово, он намеревается как раз я выбираю его для
того чтобы намереваться.
en When I use a word, it will intend exactly I I select it in order to intend.
ru Когда я использую слово, он предназначит точно меня, котор я
выбираю его для того чтобы предназначить.
en When I use a word, it will design accurately me, I is which I
select it in order to design.
nl Wanneer ik een woord gebruik, zal het me nauwkeurig ontwerpen, is I
welk ik het selecteer te ontwerpen.
en When I use a word, it me closely devise, is I which I select it to devise.
ko 나가 낱말을 사용할 때, 나가 가깝게 고안하기 위하여 나가 그것을 선정하는I고안하고, 이는 그것.
en To go out and when using a word, go out and in order to devise
nearly go out and and the I it selects it devise, it.

I suspect these examples are not very impressive -- I am not a native
English speaker and just don't really know what you are considering a
good pun. But I ensure you that some chains starting and ending in
Russan are just gems!

I've upload the script onto Lojban wiki, URL is:

http://www.lojban.org/tiki/tiki-download_wiki_attachment.php?attId=574&page=Cyril%20Slobin

Run it as "popyfon.py en latin1" or "popyfon.py en utf-8" depending of
your terminal charset. Without args defaults are "ru cp866", which is
probably not what most of you want. The script is one evening hack, it
is not intended to be well-designed, reliable or user-friendly. It
either works or crashes, but if it works -- it is funny. ;-)

--
Cyril Slobin <slobin@ice.ru> `When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said,
<http://45.free.net/~slobin> `it means just what I choose it to mean'