Miss a porters!

This comes to us this time from Giulio Mancini of Rome’s “Il Messaggero” (January 3, 2012) newspaper on the chaos surrounding Rome’s Fiumicino airport (aka Leonardo da Vinci). Mancini is quoting angry passengers and some of their Twitter messages. Indeed some fine, fine tips on how to NOT learn English!

“…digita sul suo smartphone la frase “miss a porters”, cerco i facchini”.

Translation: “…she types on her smartphone “miss a porters”, I look for porters”. Hmm, MISS means something completely opposite to LOOK for porters, and it should rather say, “Missing porters”.

“Danilo Ruffini annota il suo twet”.

Translation: “Danilo Ruffini makes a note of his twet”. Shouldn’t it be “tweet”?

Finally,

“Una donna contesta la situazione in cinque parole: ‘Immigrations is like a labyrinth”, ovvero l’ingresso in Italia e’ come un labirinto”.

Translation: “A woman contests the situation in five words: ‘Immigrations is like a labyrinth’, that is, entrance into Italy is like a labyrinth”. Hmm, immigration isn’t usually translated as “entrance” and we don’t usually put it in the plural, and if we did it should at least be “Immigrations ARE like a labyrinth”, right?