Thursday, November 09, 2006

In case of fire, first find your donkey…

A fire brigade leaflet giving practical tips of what to do if trapped in a blaze made perfect sense in English. But when translated into Urdu, the Mirror says it advised occupants to grab the nearest...donkey.

The English text, designed to cut deaths from household fires, read:
"Never jump straight out of a window. Lower yourself on to cushions etc."
But in the Urdu version it said:
"Never jump out of a window straight. Put yourself on a donkey etc and come down."
Teacher Ilfan Malik explained:
"The Urdu word for cushion is gadda. But the word for donkey is gadha. It appears whoever translated the leaflet has mixed the two words up or the spelling has been printed wrongly."
Mohammed Iqbal added: "Everyone has had a good laugh."

Strathclyde Fire and Rescue produced the brochure for ethnic communities across
Scotland.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well done Strathclyde! We always like to get a mention.

Anonymous said...

The only people messing with fire at the moment are the members of your government who have been or are about to be "helping police with their inquiries".

According to the legend that be Guido Fawkes (www.order-order.com)they are Alan Johnson, John Prescott, Alan Milburn, John Reid, Alistair Darling, Lord Falconer, Baroness Amos, Lord Grocott, Charles Clarke, Margaret Beckett, Geoff Hoon, Patricia Hewitt, Gordon Brown, Paul Murphy, Hilary Armstrong, Peter Hain, Hilary Benn, Ruth Kelly, Ian McCartney, Tessa Jowell, and Jack Straw.

Its exciting!

fairdealphil said...

geoffrey:

...and Michael Howard.

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/conservatives/story/0,,1929878,00.html

but not jailbirds Jeffrey Archer, Jonathan Aitkin...or Jim Speechley.