How Do You Say “Fail” in Hebrew?
by Rebecca Borison
With technology comes the chance of errors, some more public than others...
Ruta Kupfer of Haaretz recently revealed one such technology-related error on the television show “Episodes.” The British-American sitcom starring Matt Leblanc (a.k.a. Joey Tribbiani) embraced the modern age by apparently using Google Translate in order to translate an English epitaph into Hebrew. The English version simply reads "Beloved husband and father, dearly missed." Above that, however, the Hebrew goes awry. While they clearly used Hebrew letters, they initially don’t seem to contain any actual meaning. That is, until blogger Shahar Golan realized that the Hebrew writing was backwards.
When read from right to left, the Hebrew actually says:
בעל ואב אהוב, החמיץ ביוקר
Which, unfortunately, translates to “Beloved husband and father, pickled at great expense.”
This is the translation you'll get if you go to Google...