Russian draw offer

[JustinHorton]

I've just finished a correspondence game played by email server in which I was offered (somewhat to my surprise, since he was better) a draw by my opponent. Accompanying the draw offer was the following message:

Поступило предложение ничьей

Can anybody tell me what this means? Babel Fish gives me "entered proposal no-one's" which is not terribly helpful.

[Carl Hibbard]

I've just finished a correspondence game played by email server in which I was offered (somewhat to my surprise, since he was better) a draw by my opponent. Accompanying the draw offer was the following message:

Поступило предложение ничьей

Can anybody tell me what this means? Babel Fish gives me "entered proposal no-one's" which is not terribly helpful.

Received draw offer according to Google translate at http://translate.google.com/

[JustinHorton]

Not sure that makes a lot of sense either. Unless maybe it's "receive draw offer", i.e. an imperative and something they chose to write in case the ""draw offer" button wasn't working?

[Alex Holowczak]

If you have Firefox, you can get an Add-On called gtranslate that enables you to just highlight the relevant foreign language, and then right-click on it, go to "translate", and the correct translation will appear. It uses Google Translate, but it's much quicker than going to the site itself.

[JustinHorton]

Yeah but how good is the translation?

[John Upham]

I tried "I think your rooks are better placed on the e and d files" and the translation was

"My hovercraft is full of eels"

I then tried

"Do you think that the chapter in My System on Over-Protection is somewhat inappropriate?" and I was given

"If I said you had a beautiful body would you hold it against me?"

Anyone else have similar results?

[John Upham]

The following court proceedings include a relevant address :

Bailiff: Call Alexander Yalt!
(voices sing out the name several times)
Judge: Oh, shut up!
Bailiff: (to publisher) You are Alexander Yalt?
Publisher: (in a sing-songy voice) Oh, I am.
Bailiff: Skip the impersonations. You are Alexander Yalt?
Publisher: I am.
Bailiff: You are hereby charged that on the 28th day of May, 1970, you did
willfully, unlawfully, and with malice of forethought, publish an
alleged English-Hungarian phrase book with intent to cause a breach
of the peace. How do you plead?
Publisher: Not guilty.
Bailiff: You live at 46 Horton Terrace?
Publisher: I do live at 46 Horton terrace.
Bailiff: You are the director of a publishing company?
Publisher: I am the director of a publishing company.
Bailiff: Your company publishes phrase books?
Publisher: My company does publish phrase books.
Bailiff: You did say 46 Horton Terrace, did you?
Publisher: Yes.
Bailiff: (strikes a gong) Ah! Got him!
(lawyer and cop applaud, laugh)
Judge: Get on with it, get on with it.
Bailiff: That's fine. On the 28th of May, you published this phrase book.
Publisher: I did.
Bailiff: I quote on example. The Hungarian phrase meaning "Can you direct me
to the station?" is translated by the English phrase, "Please fondle
my bum."
Publisher: I wish to plead incompetence.
Cop: (stands) Please may I ask for an adjournment, m'lord?
Judge: An adjournment? Certainly not!

(the cop sits down again, emitting perhaps the longest and loudest release of
bodily gas in the history of the universe.)

Judge: Why on earth didn't you say WHY you wanted an adjournment?
Cop: I didn't know an acceptable legal phrase, m'lord.
(cut to ancient footage of old women applauding)
Judge: (banging + swinging gavel) If there's any more stock film of women
applauding, I'll clear the court.

[John Saunders]

Bernard Cafferty advises that "the significant word order ('There has come a proposal of a draw' - Nich'ya in Russian = draw as well as belonging to no-one) defeats the translation engines, a not uncommon feature of subordinating the richness of human expression to rigid machine rules."

[JustinHorton]

Thanks for that, to him, you and everybody. Presumably my opponent wasn't quite sure that the button would send a draw offer so he added a note to confirm his intention. Cheers.