Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611

  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
English as She Is Spoke

English as She Is Spoke

Carolino, Pedro

Paperback

PhilosophyGeneral ReferenceLinguistics

ISBN13: 9791043134234
Publisher: Les Prairies Numeriques
Published: Mar 1 2026
Pages: 50
Weight: 0.18
Height: 0.12 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English

English as She Is Spoke

Pedro Carolino

In 1855 Pedro Carolino set out to write an English phrasebook for Portuguese travelers visiting England. The only problem was that he couldn't speak English. Undeterred by this minor setback, Carolino decided to base his guide on a respected Portuguese-French phrasebook written by José da Fonseca. He took the French translations of Portuguese, and used a French-English dictionary to translate those to English.The result was an unintentional comedy of literal translation, as English phrases like the walls have ears became the walls have hearsay (via the Portuguese as paredes têm ouvidos), and waiting for someone to open the door became to craunch the marmoset (via a ridiculous misreading of archaic English, and the shape of the grotesque door knockers popular at the time).The entire guide was quite large, and not only was it of no practical use as an actual phrasebook, but its length made it too much of a slog to appeal as a comedy. But its legend slowly grew, until in 1883 it was republished in an abridged form as a book of humor titled English as She Is Spoke (a phrase which, incidentally, doesn't appear in the book itself). The abridged edition, taking the comedic highlights from the long and tedious original, is the edition that became famous.English as She Is Spoke

1 different editions

Also available

Also from

Carolino, Pedro

View All

Also in

Linguistics

View All