English as She Is Spoke

Intended as a serious Portuguese to English phrase book, this little volume became famous instead as a masterpiece of unintentional comedy. Its authors apparently spoke no real English and worked by running a Portuguese to French guide through a French to English dictionary, producing phrases no living person ever uttered, from to craunch the marmoset to the walls have hearsay. Mark Twain wrote an admiring introduction to an American edition, judging the book perfect of its kind and certain to outlast its imitators. First published in 1855, it survives not as a language aid but as a beloved monument to translation gone gloriously wrong. Every page proves that good intentions and a bad dictionary can outlive their era. Free to read as a PDF and EPUB edition.