Thursday, February 09, 2012

Posters, translations, and strange French idioms

A French friend sent me a poster of a shaven head guy in tights with a "wrap-around" mustache.

Overlaid on the picture was

"L'affiche est aux beaux-artes ce que le catch est aux bonnes manières."

I understood most of it except "le catch". I put the sentence into translate.google and was given

"The poster is in fine ridges that wrestling is good manners."

Ah, so "le catch" is wrestling. So I sent the following correction back to Google.

"The poster is to the fine arts as wrestling is to good manners."

You can see a version of the poster at http://www.ligneasuivre.com.

My friend has worked at Ligne à Suivre for several years.