Retranslated Nursery Rhymes Quiz

You’re listening to A Way with Words. I’m Martha Barnette.

And I’m Grant Barrett.

And we’re joined now by our quiz guy, Greg Pliska. Hello, Greg.

Hello, Grant. Hello, Martha.

Hi, Greg.

This week’s puzzle is called The Mother of Goose, It is Moved.

This game uses Babelfish, or Babelfish, however you pronounce it, the internet translation service.

Okay.

So I started with a nursery rhyme, and using Babelfish, I translated it into another language, then back into English, then back into a third language, and so on.

And the interesting thing, of course, is not which languages I used, but how quickly the translation devolves into gibberish.

So I’m going to give you the final gibberish, and you have to identify the original nursery rhyme I started with.

Okay.

Okay.

All right.

Here’s your first one.

The lamp holder or the jack? It jumps over the agile jack.

Jack and chill.

No, jack be nimble.

Jack be nimble, jack be quick.

Oh, I see nursery rhymes.

If I had gotten to the end of it where it says, and the Jack, you fast.

Oh, okay.

All right.

That is Jack be nimble, Jack be quick, Jack jump over the candlestick.

Nice.

All right.

Sitting on the fence wall squat. There is a big chunky waterfall.

All of the Mayo King, the king who is unable to collect a cumulative effect.

It’s Humpty Dumpty.

It is.

Humpty Dumpty.

The king was kind of the giveaway in the wall.

You see, I’m sitting on the fence wall squat. There is a big, chunky waterfall.

There is.

Okay, here’s another one for you.

This is actually very poetic, the way this comes out.

The wharf dickory in the hard nut clock the mouse was operated.

The clock rose in one lower part, and the mouse stabbed.

Dickory, the hard nut, the wharf.

Hickory dickory dock.

That is beautiful.

Hickory dickory dock, yes.

That is beautiful.

I like the way it came out.

Dickory, the hard nut, the wharf.

So how many languages did you put these through?

Two, three?

That was just English to, that one I think went to Spanish to English to Chinese to English.

Oh, wow.

Okay.

And one of the keys is if you go to like a romance language and back and then go into something Asian or more further removed, you get a lot of chaos happening.

It’s really good.

All right.

Here’s another one for you.

One small bow chirp cannot call lost her sheeps, and you find those somewhere.

If they are shot, return in the house.

Shake the tail with that rear department.

What?

Shake that tail with the rear department, Little Bo Peep.

Exactly.

Little Bo Peep has lost her sheep.

They’ll come home wagging their tails behind them.

Shake that tail with that rear department.

I’m just glad you find this as humorous as I do.

I mean, I read these things and I want to cry.

They’re so funny.

I do.

Baby got rear department.

I’m liking it.

Yeah, exactly.

Here’s another one for you.

Calling voice of the sheep and calling voice of the sheep.

In the nuisance, is there a certain fur?

It is.

And as for person is the complete gentleman, three sacks.

One for my original, for my woman one, and it is small one are tracks, trucks for the young person.

This you have lived.

Is that Baba Black Sheep?

Baba Black Sheep.

Calling voice of the sheep and calling voice of the sheep.

Calling voice of the sheep.

Do you read?

Do you read?

Calling voice of the sheep.

Come in.

Come in.

In the nuisance, is there a certain fur?

I mean, it’s brilliant.

I think all the human translators out there are really enjoying this.

This is really justifying the work they do, right?

It justifies their work 100% and more.

Absolutely.

All right.

I’ve got one more for you.

Because those went to St. Ives, seven sacks, which have the spouse who made everyone who was made in the individual who has seven spouses, all sacks, seven cats, which it has, all cats, the dependents, seven of dependents, and some rank, which it had, the cat, the sack, and the spouse it meets to the St. Ives, who goes that here?

This is like a divorce document.

It is.

Exactly.

It is.

It is.

Like that. The man

Going to St. Ives. Going to St. Ives,

Exactly. It’s a tricky enough

Riddle without translating it through

Six different languages. I’ll say.

Yeah, me too.

Well, that’s great, Greg. Thank you so much for the quiz.

That was kind of amazing.

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