Ah language.
It is a thing that can unite, a thing that can divide.
And a thing where it is misunderstood which can get you into lots of trouble,
Add a little British humour into the mix and a bad translator and very soon you can find yourself in really hot water, and it has taken me some years in Dalmatia to train myself to grade my speech to different levels, so that my conversation partner can better understand me (and I have been grateful to Croatian speakers who have done the same with me).
Sometimes people THINK they know how to translate something and do not get it quite right. Something that sounds very similar in Croatian can produce some quite spectacular results when put through Google Translate. Like ‘kozice’ for example.
On its own ‘kozice’ means ‘prawns’, a popular ingredient in Dalmatia’s fine cuisine. Unfortunately, when putting through Google Translate, ‘vodene kozice’ is often used – smallpox.
A quirky ingredient.
The picture above is from a fast food place in Split, but I have also seen a very good (genuinely excellent choice of food) menu ruined by one of the first dishes – celery soup with smallpox. A fine dish for an island whose Mediterranean diet is inscribed as intangible UNESCO heritage.
We come to the topic today after some quite extraordinary reaction to my latest editorial on Total Croatia News yesterday, called Ultra Europe Takes Control of the Branding of Hvar, Split and Bol. As usual, lots of comments from people who did not actually bother reading the article, and I was much amused to be accused of being a paid promoter of Ultra. A special moment given this website’s stance on Ultra Europe and Hvar over the years.
There is no denying, however, that the Ultra 2015 Aftermovie is a fantastic production, or that it will define the perception of the island of Hvar to the more than 2 million people who will see it. Apparently pointing this fact out makes me an even bigger idiot than I already am, and so this morning, in the absence of any official Hvar Tourist Board video or even definition of a brand for Hvar, I went out in search of some positive official Hvar tourist board promotion which defines their vision of Hvar the destination.
And then I found it!
Quite by chance, as I was researching things for an article about the website European Best Destinations (out later on Total Croatia News, and VERY interesting – at least I think so). This is the website behind Zagreb being nominated the best Christmas market in Europe, and now nominating Zadar as the best destination in Europe 2016.
The content for the website is provided by tourist boards it seems, as the website talks of official partnerships, and when I clicked on a link for the Best Hidden Gems in Europe, I was pleased to see Hvar as one of the few destinations nominated.
Until I read the promotional text which was copyright of something called TZ Hva.
I am pleased they asserted their copyright, you wouldn’t want people stealing such quality textual insights into Croatia’s premier island…
I asked an English native speaker to comment, and she was fixated on the gibberish of paragraph three – how did this paragraph start out in the original?
I was surprised that she got that far, for I was still trying to figure out how one of the strengths of one of Europe’s best hidden gems was ‘mundane tourism’.
A job in the supermarket is mundane. Taking the ferry every day to work is mundane. But Hvar as a tourist destination? I consulted a dictionary:
lacking interest or excitement; dull.
“his mundane, humdrum existence”
synonyms: humdrum, dull, boring, tedious, monotonous, tiresome, wearisome, prosaic, unexciting, uninteresting, uneventful, unvarying, unvaried, unremarkable, repetitive, repetitious, routine, ordinary, everyday, day-to-day, quotidian, run-of-the-mill, commonplace, common, workaday, usual, pedestrian, customary, regular, normal;
Hmmm – Sexy Ultra Europe Aftermovie or official branding of the destination as ‘mundane’?
Of course, a little like our outbreak of smallpox above, the meanings of what were intended and what were stated are quite close. In Croatia. And Italian it seems, as a writing colleague commented:
“If this were Italian, I could easily tell where the conondrum lies: mundane is a so-called false friend which often translates the word “mondano”, which in English means wordly but also fashionable, trendy.”
Thus ends the second in our new series of our new (free) humanitarian assistance programme called Total Local Tourist Board Watchdog after the Split Tourist Board’s fabulous ‘How to Get to Split by Train’ page last week.
Simple copy editing is not expensive and improves the quality of the message immensely. One of the best in Croatia, for example, is Murphy Media, who you can contact here.
Perhaps not a bad suggestion, especially if you are contemplating hosting a prawn festival.
