steal this idea

Tongue bites man

I was going to tell you alert you to a troubling story in today's MfD, but that dastardly Doug Arellanes beat me to it: the Czech Senate has decided that it's ok to call this country 'Česko'. Read Doug's take here.

To further confound matters, someone who speaks much better Czech explained to me that 'Česko' is Czech for 'Czechia'. Sorta like 'Deutsch' is German for 'Tedesco', I suppose.

That's the Senate. Earlier this month, the Chamber of Deputies rejected a provision to require broadcasters to use correct grammar, which is just as well. But as a struggling -- nay, floundering -- student of the Czech language, I get dark urges to see native Czech speakers suffer. Especially when they're grammatically incorrect. Tell me you haven't felt this way.

Liar.

Meanwhile, LN publishes a page one story about how Czech bureaucrats are struggling with something called 'euročeštině'. Apparently, they's all sorts of high-falutin words in them thar EU documents what ain't got no good Czech e-quivalent. Case in point:

Jeden z náměstků ministra pro místní rozvoj dokonce údajně nabízí deset tisíc korun tomu, kdo dokáže co nejdokonaleji přeložit do češtiny slovo implementace.

And I'll give a bright, shiny nickel to whoever best translates into English the word 'oblivious'.

And you thought abusing Babblefish was fun: There are few on-line translators that handle Czech, but here's one that produces gems like 'Dolly Bust: storied Cesko since Ciny az about America' and the above-mentioned 'OUT OF uredniku are modern obrozenci, solicitude their eurocestine unreason'.

Speaking of unreason: The city has another pipe dream for the Stalin plinth. Prague 7 has announced plans to install a sightseeing balloon on Letná plain. The balloon will apparently be able to take 32 passengers 150 meters up to give them a really good view of ... the ground. I mean, I wish them all the best and I'll totally be in line for the ride, but as anyone who's gone up in the Žižkov TV tower knows, Prague's hundred or thousand or miliard spires sorta disappear when you go above a certain point. Of course, if it's hectare after hectare of orange roof tiles you want, knock yourself out.

posted by Theo @ 8:04 PM