If you’re a geek you’ve probably seen a whole variety of screenshots coming out of Translation Party, the script that takes an English phrase and translates it back and forth into Japanese before finally settling on an equilibrium – where the Engrish translates into Japanese in such a way that it translates back into the same Engrish. Maybe I’m just starved for content today, but I just had to throw it some Shakespeare.  Unfortunately it doesn’t have a good way to link directly to results :(, and I don’t have the time to sit and generate a boatload of screenshots, so I’ll leave it up to your imaginations and see what you come up with.

Here’s a few that I tried, although it loses the effect without seeing it worked out on the fly…

“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate” takes only 5 steps before reaching equilibrium with “This summer I am, I would have to compare? Your warm and beautiful.”

“Is this a dagger I see before me, the handle toward my hand?” takes 7 steps to reach “To do this, please see the dagger in the handle toward my hand?”

Ah, here’s a good one!  “To be, or not to be?” —>  “Or to not?”

“Or to not?” —>  “Whether or not?”

“Whether or not?” –> “Whether?”

“Whether?”  –> “Whether?”

(For some reason that reminds me of my old Esperanto lessons.  Cxu esti, aux ne esti!)

UPDATED:  Never, never, never, never, never.

http://superpunch.blogspot.com/2009/05/disney-to-make-animated-version-of.html I wish this was true, but it looks more like some sort of collaboration among animators to draw what Macbeth might look like, in Disney style.  Ah, well.  I’m still holding out for The Tempest, but I think the “Gnomeo and Juliet” is the next one coming.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/14/books/14wallace.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

I was unfamiliar with the work of David Foster Wallace, professor of English at Pomona College, who was apparently best known for the 1000-page novel “Infinite Jest.”  I suppose comparing someone to Thomas Pynchon is intended to be complimentary, but I know I was never able to finish Gravity’s Rainbow.  However, one reviewer refers to the overall effect as “something like a sleek Vonnegut chassis wrapped in layers of post-millennial Zola.”  I’d be excited about that prospect if I knew anything about Zola. The death appears to have been a suicide.  Does anybody know more about the author, and want to say a few words?

When I blogged about “Why Is Shakespeare So Hard” based on references in my search logs, it became one of my most commented topics.  I’m curious if that trick will work twice.  The Romeo and Juliet thread made me think of a similar question, as seen above.

What do you hate about Shakespeare?

Now, as a bunch of Shakespeare geeks who are voluntarily spending our time talking about it, I don’t expect that the regular readers hate him all that much.  What I’m hoping is that people googling the topic will stop by and enlighten us about why *they* hate him, and then maybe we can do something about it or at least understand it a little better. Of course, if you’re a Shakespeare pro and you’ve got some hatred to vent, go for it.