The World’s Most Misleading Phrase Book: English as She is Spoke

The World’s Most Misleading Phrase Book: English as She is Spoke

By Mr Ghaz, November 4, 2009

The World’s Most Misleading Phrase Book: English as She is Spoke

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One of the most extraordinary books ever published appeared in Paris in 1815. Its simple if slightly ungrammatical title, The New Guide of the Conversation in Portuguese and English, revealed little of the nature of its truly remarkable contents.

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Pedro Carolino – of whom virtually nothing is known – had collaborated with Jose da Fonseca, the respected author of a Portuguese-French phrase book first published in 1836, in converting his book into a Portuguese-English phrase book. There was just one problem: Carolino did not know a word of English.

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Imagine translating Portuguese, a language you speak, into French, a language of which you have a rudimentary grasp, and then, via literal translation from a French-English dictionary, into English, a language of which you have not the slightest knowledge. You will have some idea of the likely outcome, but nothing can prepare you for the credible, surreal, and often hilarious contents of Carolino’s New Guide.

“The Care What We Wrote Him”

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In the preface Carolino presents his book “clean of gallicisms, and despoiled phrases,” proclaims “the care what we wrote him,” and decries the “core-lessness” of his rivals. It serves as a delightful introduction to the fabulously inaccurate and extensive sections that follow: “Vocabulary,” “Familiar Phrases,” “Familiar Dialogues,” and “Idiotisms and Proverbs.”

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The world of Pedro Carolino is one in which people’s jobs include those of “harbinger” and “parapet.” They suffer from such ailments as “the vomitory,” “a bald,” and “an ugly,” and have as everyday items of tableware “some crumb” Contained in their comprehensive list of popular fish are the hedgehog, snail, and wolf. They play such games as “gleek” and “keel.”

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Students of Carolino use commonplace English phrase such as, “I shall not tell you than two woods”; “He laughs at my nose”; “You hear the bird gurgling?”; “Let us prick go us more fast”; “Take that boy and whip him to much”; and “Who lhat (sic) be too washed, too many soaped, and the shirts put through the buck.”

Carolino’s dialogues ensure that his readers can discuss any aspect of the weather, having rehearsed such observations as: “There is some foggy”; “The sun rise on”; and “It is light moon’s.”

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A transaction with a “furniture tradesman,” for example, might run as follows: “Which highness want you its?” “I want almost four feet six thumbs wide’s, over seven of long.”

Anyone with the intention of going fishing could make good use of:

“That pond it seems me many multiplied of fishes. Let us amuse rather to the fishing.”

“I do like-it too much.”

“Here, there is a wand and some hooks.”

“Silence! There is a superb perch. Give me quick the rod. Ah! there it is. It is a lamprey.”

“You mistake you, it is a frog!”

A Certain Humor

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Although we cannot be sure that Da Fonseca died of shame, we do know that he passed away in 1866 and that his name did not appear on the next edition of the book.

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Within a few years of publication the completely unintentional humor of Carolino’s bizarre book was widely recognized. In 1883 in Britain selections from the book were as a 60-page pamphlet, English as She Is Spoke, which ran to 10 editions. A pirated American edition was equally successful, In the same year, Mark Twain, a devoted fan of Carolino’s, published a facsimile of the original. Referring to “its delicious ridiculousness,” Twain wrote: “In this world of uncertainties, there is, at any rate, one thing left which may be pretty confidently set down as a certainty: and that is, that this celebrated little phrase-book will never die while the English language lasts.”