February 8, 2024 • 48 mins
True story: back in the late 70s, US President Jimmy Carter accidentally claimed he'd left the states forever, and wanted to sleep with everyone in Poland. According to legendary marketing lore, Pepsi accidentally told the nation of China that soda would bring their relatives back from the grave. And don't get us started on weird car names! Join Ben, Noel and Max as they explore some of history's most hilarious mistranslations in the first part of this ongoing series.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
(00:27):
the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much
for tuning in in whatever language you wish. We also
are obviously recording this in English with the help of
our super producer, mister Max Williams.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Ty Hoe on Young Lussio.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
Yes, Yes, funny, funny story, Noel, I think you may
have heard this one the first time I was in Germany.
I was there for several weeks and I this was
pre uh translation apps, pre cell phone, and I have
practiced for some time a phrase that was very proud of,
(01:07):
and a phrase was this. When people came up to
me and inevitably spoke German, I would say, I would
try my best to keep up. Obviously I couldn't. And
then when I got when the water got too deep
for me linguistically, I would hold up a hand and
I would say, I'm sorry, my German is not good enough.
Can we continue this conversation in English?
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Ooh, that's a power but not a power move, a
super move.
Speaker 3 (01:31):
It's just a really very utilitarian phrase because it's respecting
their language and sort of putting you at the disadvantage
where it's like, listen, I gave it my all. You
are my intellectual superior, and I would really appreciate it
if you would talk to me like a child. So
I tried this, and maybe linguistic superior, but you have
(01:53):
to try, you know what I mean. Yeah, I'm just
I'm overstating the case. But it is very self deprecating
in a positive way, which I think would put them
in your corner.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Thanks, man, one would hope. But for again, for quite
some time, I would be in these conversations, I would
stop and say, I'm sorry, my English or my German
is not good enough. Could we continue in English? And
every single time I said this, the person I was
speaking to would kind of get a chill over them.
There would be some ice in the room, and then
(02:23):
they would usually say something like because Germans all speak excellent.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
English these days.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
Sure They would usually say something like, very well, I
was asking if you needed blah blah blah, or I
was asking the way to the you know.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
The aldi.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
And then at the very end of this trip, I'm
walking into the hostel and I bumped shoulders accidentally with
somebody walking out, and then she says this thing, and
I say I'm sorry, my German's not good enough? Can
we continue in English? And then she says, in a
perfect California accent. By the way, she says, you're an asshole.
(03:03):
And then the lady at the counter starts laughing and
she says, do you know what you've been saying? I said,
oh no, here's what I've been saying. I've been saying
to native German speakers, I'm sorry your German is not
good enough? Can we continue this conversation in English? And
I'm saying it with the worst American accent. Oh gosh, apologies,
(03:25):
good people of Berlin.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
That is perfect.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
That is a perfect example of delete into what we're
talking about today. But Ben in theory, like I said,
I mean, I was surprised when you said there was
this icy reactions. I was like, no, that's a pretty thoughtful,
respectful little thing to say, and if you had translated
it correctly, it would have been a super move. But
instead it sunk your linguistic battleship.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
Yes, with apologies to all the good people of Berlin
and the Berlin metro area or I guess Frankfurt as well.
You are no brown. I am Ben Bullet. This is
ridiculous history.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
True, it is that very thing, and that just really quickly.
Speaker 3 (04:01):
While we're on the topic of Berlin in funny translations,
when I was traveling in Berlin with my buddy Frank,
friend of the show, he he had done his duo
lingo best, you know, to get some phrases up for
the trip. And the thing that I'll always remember is
when he was trying to order some pastries at like
a train station and he kind of got flummixed and
(04:22):
couldn't think of the word. He just said it in English,
but in a really thick German accent, and it was
not like intentional. It was clearly like his brain wiring
just kind of like fritzed out.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
And that was what he did in the panic of
the moment.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
Is you know, ordering in English dis stressful sometimes, let
alone trying to do it in a foreign language.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
But I will rib him about that until the day
we die.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
What did the what did the pastry seller say?
Speaker 2 (04:48):
How did they I.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
Don't think they even clocked it. I don't think it
was an issue, but I just it was.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
I just was.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
We were also a little punchy, you know, from time
differences and things like that, so it was kind of
a little bit dreamles, but that was just one of
the funniest things.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
That's amazing.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
And you know, when you travel or whenever, when you travel,
whether across physical distance or across a linguistic gap, these
kinds of foibles and little hiccups are not uncommon. It
was weird because one thing that expired our exploration today,
our good buddy Josh Clark, had reached out in advance
(05:23):
of an episode they did on Esperanto, which is a constructed,
nifty language, chock full of puns, all kinds of cool stuff,
And we started thinking about how translation works. You know,
are there really some things that you can say in
one language but not in another? How often do even
the world's smartest, sharpest people get it wrong. This led
(05:45):
to what, honestly Noel might end up being a continuing series,
the history of famous mistranslations. I was thinking, I don't
know if you ever heard this would but maybe we
start off.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
With what I was not familiar with.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
Jimmy Carter one time said that he wanted to leave
the US forever and have sex with everyone in Poland.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
Well, and this is funny because Jimmy Carter, you know,
famous sweetheart. So you know, I'm sure there was no
harm intended, but yeah, I mean, especially when you're like
a traveling dignitary, these kinds of things can actually have
real world consequences in terms of like relationships between countries
or god forbid, even you know, escalation of conflict.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
Right.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
Yeah, So let's travel back. It's December twenty ninth, nineteen
seventy seven. Jimmy Carter is kicking off his really like
his first field trip as president, and he's going on
a six country tour and the first stop is.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Poland six country too, is that?
Speaker 3 (06:58):
I guess it's only a whistle stur if it's in
America and by train, right, but it is sort of
like a foreign version of that, you know, where he's
not kind of trying to show face, you know, say hey,
I'm the new guy, check out my chops and let's
make friends.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
Yeah, he's got a lot to prove to the world
and domestically to the United States, and as we know
with the history of the Carter administration, he had a
lot of problems proving himself domestically in policy.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
It was a tough time.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
But you know what, when you're the US president and
you land in a country. It's not the way that
the MAXs and the Knowles and the bends of the
world land. You don't have to stand in line, right,
you don't really have to go through customs. You get
off and you meet you get off the plane, you
meet a ton of dignitaries, and there's like a crowd
(07:51):
of people who are either angry at you or really
happy to see you. Either way, they want something. And
so Jimmy gets off the plague and he's got this
big speech he's going to do for Polish politicians and
activists and protesters. He gets welcomed by the leader of
Poland's Communist Party, Edward Garrick, and then five hundred other
(08:15):
people who are just hanging out and they've been waiting
all night in the bitter cold, in the snow, just
to see him. So he has to make this a
ridal a glimpse, right, right, So he has to make
his arrival worth the wait.
Speaker 3 (08:29):
Yeah, he does, and he did just that, perhaps not
in the way that he was intending or in a
way that would be pleasing to the nation of Poland.
So before we get into where this thing went horribly horribly,
a arrived let's give a little bit of context. It
was the late seventies, which is an extremely sensitive period
(08:49):
to your point earlier Ben for this nation Poland. Carter
and his team were there to talk business in terms
of like you know, business commerce between Poland and the
United States. Poland wanted more export markets in the US
and they were asking for around two hundred million dollars
worth of agricultural export credits.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
And we don't need to get too in the weeds
about that.
Speaker 3 (09:12):
I don't think I fully understand what export credits means.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
Yeah, I agree, we don't need to get too into
the weeds because we might ourselves mistranslate what that means.
But from the base level understanding, it means that the
US was being asked to degree yeah, yeah, to not
have taxes or higher you know duty's and tariffs and
(09:37):
stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
I see.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
But it also sort of sets up a tone where
it's like, this is how this is the kind of
business we're going to be doing.
Speaker 4 (09:43):
And I know, I think maybe what it also do
is it's like we're going to do at least this much,
So it gives that's what I mean.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it sort of sets the tone of
the business transaction, right.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
Yeah, and on the other side of the conversation, and
you know, kind of the other side of the iron
curtain at this point, because it's Jimmy's first field trip
as the president, he again has a lot to prove.
And his head foreign policy advisor at the time is
a guy. Uh we all love this name, Zebec new
Brznetski un he himself.
Speaker 3 (10:16):
First, I was having a hard time with the big
new Okay, yeah, well done.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
He's he's He is also a Polish origin.
Speaker 4 (10:23):
Also, I gotta jump in here. The last name has
a Z, then an E, then another z.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
It's polish Man. Polish is a famously difficult language for
like people growing up in Poland. It's a difficult language.
Because his foreign policy advisor is himself a Polish origin.
They have kept a close eye on the country and
they're seeing the economy stalling, They're seeing growing economic instability,
(10:52):
and the communist Polish public is increasingly asking, what if
our current status quo is the wrong status quo? What
if there's a better answer.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
So this is the.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
Perfect time for a pro democracy force like the US
president to come through and you know, lay down some charms,
spit some game.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
Yeah, and he spits said game with the help of
a State Department provided translator by the name of Stephen Seymour,
which is very vanilla sounding name. A thirty one year
old fellow, and you know, not a bad dude by nature.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
But let's just say maybe he lacked a little bit
of experience. He had the bona fides though, right, he
was a polyglot.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
Most Americans are not able to say that, you know,
I could barely speak English, you know, Felia man, he
always very impressive when you go abroad and you realize
how it is just standard for folks to know multiple languages.
I feel like that is a kind of brain capacity
that I no longer possess. But again, he wasn't incompetence.
(12:05):
He was a great translator of Polish and Russian and
French texts into English. And he had a real solid
reputation for translating poetry. And I wanted to bring this
up too earlier, Ben, because translating conversations versus translating like literature, right,
or poetry or text the Bible even you know, there's
(12:25):
so many things in the kind of the umami that
you give the translation in order to make the feeling
of it translate to the new language, because you know,
works of art and literature, they are meant to be
felt as much as they are meant to be read
and interpreted. So it's like he was maybe working with
(12:45):
a little bit more nuanced than maybe was required for
this particular gig.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
I don't know, what do you think?
Speaker 1 (12:51):
Yeah, I mean, you're absolutely right about that art of translation,
you know, and it is incredibly differentfficult to convey tone
and context or you know, the vibe for lack of
a better word, in conversation. If you're just translating a
scientific text, then the task is a little bit easier.
(13:12):
But this, dude is it's kind of like being asked
to do freestyle poetry from one language to the next
on the fly. And Polish was his fourth language. He
was Russian born, So translating from English to Polish is
like an extra plot twist for this got it an
(13:33):
extra permutation.
Speaker 3 (13:35):
Just to go back to our conversation with aj, you
know about like the kind of levels of cipher's. You know,
you start to get kind of cipher's within cipher's and
that can really affect the complexity of the operation.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
Yeah, and as a result. In his initial speech, and
again this is in front of more than five hundred people,
including the leader of the country, he makes.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
Three big errors.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
The first one is he means to say, I'm very
glad to be in Poland. The way Seymour translates this,
it sounds like he is telling the crowd he has
abandoned the US forever and he's going to live in
Poland from now on.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
That's like his opening line.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
And bless his heart. We got to use that because
that's something that he would have said. Yeah, can you
imagine him saying all this stuff in Polish? Given it
his Southern best, you know what I mean. I mean,
it's probably comical. If there's tape of it that exists,
I would love to hear him, because you know, he's
doing it with an open heart and trying his best
(14:36):
to be a man of the people that he's communicating with.
But I'm sure it was cringe, you know, listening to
Southern bell like Jimmy Carter trying to muddle his way
through Polish.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
So what's happening is Jimmy Carter is saying his prepared
English speech and then it's kind of like when you
have a ASL interpreter who's standing. Oh so he was,
it's actually speaking Polish. Yeah, I don't think so.
Speaker 3 (15:03):
Okay, sorry, my fantasy has been no, no, what's cool.
I just my fantasy has been shattered. It's fine.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
It would it would be amazing though, and it would
have also been a tremendous flex where he is speaking.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
I guess that's not really done, you know, in terms
of like a foreign dignitary trying to speak the language.
But you do hear things like ben I and berlin a,
you know, but that's just sort of like that's a
big deal for that. I think they put a lot
of weight into them attempting to actually speak the language,
and usually those things get pull quoted quite frequently.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
And I think one of the issues that we see
even now with this kind of interaction is geopolitical. Like,
for instance, if there were a US president that speaks
fluent Russian in public conversation regarding Russia or to the
Russian people, they're probably still going to speak in English,
(15:55):
like Vladimir Putin knows English, but it's seen as sort
of a like rolling over and showing the belly to
not speaking your own language, which I think is a
little bit cold warish, but sure, but that's what he's doing.
So second one, this is a weird one. Carter is
giving a kind of in depth shout out to the
(16:18):
Polish Constitution from seventeen ninety one, and in his speech
he says this constitution is one of the greatest monuments
to human rights in the entirety of the seventeen hundreds.
But the way Seymour translates it, it comes off like
a really sarcastic sounding roast, like something from the Colbert Report,
(16:39):
sort of like.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
One of the three greatest monuments of human rights of
the entire.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
And it's all in the it's all in the way
they order it, because he lists this one thing as greatest,
and he lists this second thing, and then he says,
and you know, third.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
Place, coming in third, solid third, you know.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
So Carter, by the way that you're founding document exactly, Yeah,
welcome to your bronze medal as a country. And Carter
still doesn't know anything's wrong. He's probably he's probably thinking, well,
maybe they just don't react the same way American crowds do.
Speaker 3 (17:22):
Which they maybe don't, you know, I mean, very likely
there would think about all the things that would have
been in play, like the decorum, or maybe there would
be a little confusion not necessarily gonna erupt into outright aggression.
So it would be kind of confusing being up there
and then not really knowing because you're already coming into
a situation where you're not familiar with all of the
(17:43):
cultural nuances. And then you're starting to see some head
scratching and you're like, oh, okay, well maybe I'm killing it.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
Who am I to say, let's just sally for it.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
Maybe they just don't cheer here. Maybe that's an American.
Speaker 5 (17:55):
They're very reserved Polish, right. Sure, and then so he
doesn't know anything's going wrong. Sure, he's a very smart guy,
So surely he's getting a weird vibe. And he says,
I would like to learn more about the desires of
the Polish people.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
Naughty Jimmy Cotty, I love it. Well, what he means
there is that he, therefore America.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
Wants to know what the public dreams about when it
comes to early future of their country.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
Yeah, how is it translated? Well, I don't know know.
Speaker 3 (18:30):
I mean, maybe it's just the way you said it been,
But I get The word desire is a sticky wicket,
my friends, you know, because it's like it could be
used formerly like I desire to make a pact of peace,
you know, with this nation. But also if you don't
continue the formality on the back end and you kind
of mix it up a little bit, it can sound
(18:52):
real horny, you know, by accident. I think that's why
I still don't like the It's my Pleasure at Chick
fil A weird me out.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
It just sounds a little horny.
Speaker 3 (19:01):
I don't know why, And especially when paired with the
kind of puritanical roots of that company, it just sounds
like repressed horny.
Speaker 2 (19:08):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
Also how that review is just too much.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
You know what, very weird. It's very like Robot. It's
like eight thirty in the morning.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
Also your fifteen Courtney, just give me the weird chicken biscuit.
Speaker 3 (19:21):
I think I basically picked up on the same nuances
that the Polish were picking up because more or less
out of like you know, he they interpreted what he
said as like I want to know you all.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
Sexually exactly exactly. It came to Medley in quiet storm. Yeah,
you're on the money, though it translated with you're all
the money with both Chick fil A and this by
the way, it translated in a way that meant to
the Polish people in the audience, I specifically meet Jimmy Carter.
Want to have sex with all of.
Speaker 3 (19:53):
You, all of all at the same time.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
We could we can take and do a numbers system
that one, you know, one by one everybody. Logistics aren't
What's what's concerning me right now? I just want it?
Here's my question?
Speaker 4 (20:13):
Was Roslin there also?
Speaker 2 (20:14):
I think she was can get in the mix it.
We talked on the plane, We preyed on it. She's schools.
She likes your vibe too. We're opening up our relationships
your entire country because what's more American than that, you know? Uh,
it's bigger than all of us.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
Yes, so uh this thing was actually scandalous enough that
the local newspapers decided to censor themselves. So the many
reporters weren't there. He didn't he didn't know any of this,
none the wiser. Yeah, exactly. So they toned the statement
down when they report on this, and what they say
instead of I want to have sex with you is uh,
(20:53):
I want to have carnal knowledge of the Polish, which
is still not it's not improvement cardinal. It's just I
don't know what it is about that word cardinal. Just
it's because also the idea of consumption of EAI.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
I'm gonna say, it's like I want to devour you,
I want to devour your.
Speaker 4 (21:11):
Flesh makes me just think of popcorn. I mean, I
think that what makes this so terrible is is Jimmy Carter.
We're talking about you. It's like sweetheart, Yeah, this wholesome sweetheart.
Like I think, Ben, you're the one who told me
this lie. But it's like Jimmy Carter might not been
the best president, but he might have been the best
person who was president.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
Oh continues, I mean he's not did he just die? No,
Roslyn passed away.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
I'm sorry, he's he's I'm not. He's so old and
continues to do amazing work, you know, with his foundations,
and it's just a regularly I think I think he
like insists on his presidential kind of detail and like
you know, property and supplements that you get to be
the bare bones minimum because he doesn't want anyone to
have to pay for his life. And and he does
(21:55):
all this habitat for humanity stuff like super legitimately awesome
guy continuously so you know, throughout his career. Again, maybe
not the best president. This diplomacy stuff is obviously really tricky,
but what a guy. You know, he will go down
in history as one of the great philanthropists I think
of of our time.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
Well said, he's also he's also he is in hospice
as we record now, and.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
I knew he wasn't. Well, that's that was triggering for many.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
A while, right by some time now, Yeah, for many years,
he for many years he would.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
But he makes every now and again not but he did.
Speaker 3 (22:31):
I mean, but within the last handful of years he
would show up to big, big deal things. But yeah, anyway,
we interviewed him at the Carter Center a few years
back for how stuff works in the house stuff works
days and I think our pal Matt Frederick has I
think it was Matt, one one of our longtime friends
(22:52):
has Uh has a great story about thinking, holy crap,
I have to put a lava leer mike on Jimmy Carter.
For any non audio nerds, lava lier mic is the
little thing you have to clip and drop down someone's shirt. Yeah,
it requires getting a little cardinal so they've got some
cardinal knowledge of Jimmy Carter.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
So so this is crazy because Jimmy doesn't know, the
Americans on the team don't know, and the transfer.
Speaker 3 (23:20):
Translators are moving on to another gig or at least
he's like got his hands full just doing the day
to day of translating throughout these meetings. So he's not
even thinking twice about what's just transpired in this speech, right, he.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
Doesn't know until two days later when a local journalist
finally ask him what's going on. It's sort of like,
have you ever had a great day or a great
meeting and then you realize that your fly has been
down the whole time. It's kind of like that.
Speaker 3 (23:48):
Yeah, it may be even worse, because this is just
like the biggest whoops, Like you thought you killed it,
You thought everything was good, you did your job well,
and then it turns out way no, you had one
job and you did it not well at all, And
now you've got to deal with the backlash and you're
probably gonna get fired, which I believe did quietly happen.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
Yeah, this is this is crazy.
Speaker 1 (24:13):
So he he's been busting his humps, Like you said,
our translairacymore for the preceding forty eight hours handling all
this other stuff as an interpreter. And then there's a
final formal banquet and he has removed from that banquet.
It's not an improvement, scored it out. Yeah, their last
(24:33):
minute escort or their last minute interpreter rather couldn't do
his job because Jimmy Carter has somewhattle strong southern axioms.
Speaker 3 (24:44):
A bit of a drawl bit, if you will. He's
got a god molding a slip of molasses in there, and.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
It really likes to roll around inside.
Speaker 3 (24:53):
The word just make a meal of it, you know,
right right, never metal phrase that didn't need some shoeing,
and the.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
That's so dumb, No, keep it back.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
And so this interpreter was listening to this and the
poor guys thinking is this even English? And so he
literally just sits there until the interpreter from the Polish government,
presumably sighing theatrically, says, well, the president you see needs
(25:25):
to follow it.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
Yeah, there were some words spoken.
Speaker 3 (25:30):
I can't speak to the quality of them, but I
would love to hear a translation attempt at least exactly.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
So, like you said, this could have been a huge snaffoo,
a big scandal, But luckily it didn't scuttle US Polish relations.
When Carter returned to the US, they continued to work
with this country until the end of communism. And you know,
we can't say for sure whether he managed to bang
out the entire nation of communist Poland one at a
(26:04):
time or in a group. We do know, like you said,
that he was happily married and monogamous for the entirety
of his adult life, So it seems unlikely that he
did this, just think of the logistics. And it also
seems unlikely that he desired to in the first place.
Speaker 3 (26:21):
Oh yes, it would have been his pleasure to do so.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
Jimmy Carter, What a guy.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
And we're back Pepsi. Oh, pepsi. You guys like pepsi
back when you know soda drinking?
Speaker 2 (26:41):
I don't like. I don't. I don't like pepsi. Oh no, no,
good pepsi pop is good.
Speaker 4 (26:45):
I can't even fake it.
Speaker 3 (26:48):
No, dude, it's just I mean, I like some pepsi products,
but pepsi is an inferior cola. I'm sorry it has
got nothing to do with my Georgia roots. You know,
I have no skin in the game politically or terms
of loyal brand loyalty. Coca Cola Classic is just the
superior cola. Pepsi tastes weird, I don't. I don't got
a word in mouthfield. Yes it's weird.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
It stays with you a little more in the mouth itself,
and it's I almost feel like.
Speaker 3 (27:16):
It's more sugar srapy. Yes, it's denser or something. It's weird, you.
Speaker 4 (27:20):
Guys known like' like furnette.
Speaker 3 (27:24):
I feel it's like a punishment. Drink it like coats
the inside of your mouth. Whatever it's, it.
Speaker 4 (27:29):
Just lives there. It's it's now a roommate in your mouth.
Speaker 3 (27:32):
Brought to you by so uh yeah, but again Pepsi.
You know the Pepsi brass is listening. Plenty of great
pepsi products. Sure, I prefer to to coke products.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
Right, It's like how you don't you can love a
band and not need to love every album, right.
Speaker 3 (27:50):
So please please give us money pepsi. I'm sorry, We'll
take all of the buddy, we will. We will drink
pepsi on the air. So before do you know we
may have talked about this before, but there's this kind
of there's a genre of music called Plunderphonics where it's
like a lot of kind of satirical use of samples
and you know, news clips in this audio collage. But
(28:11):
there's this group called Negative Land I think we've talked about.
Oh yeah, and they made a record called Dyspepsi that
entirely uses like clips from Pepsi commercials and all kinds
of weird stuff and it's like it is a rop
I highly recommend you checking it out. It'll make you
either crave pepsi or never want to drink a pepsi ever.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
Again, it's great for that to be in the conversation
here because we're talking a lot about pepsi's at campaigns
and they've had a struggle with that. You know, we
are longtime residents of the Atlanta metro area, so we're
clearly from the Coca Cola empire, but it's important to
establish that personal taste aside, we bear no ill will
(28:51):
towards the land of Pepsi. It is true, however, that
Pepsi ran into some famous weird translation issues when they
sought to expand internationally, like I didn't know this, but
for many decades, like dating back to the late nineteen thirties,
pepsi was considered the lower end, as you said, like
(29:11):
the inferior soda. It's and it's because they tried to
advertise themselves as a money saver. Their official slogan from
thirty nine to nineteen fifty was twice as much for
a nickel.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
Yeah, okay, so it's like, are.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
We as good? Well, you get twice as much?
Speaker 3 (29:31):
Yeah, what's that checkers? You gotta eat? Yeah, and one
hundred percent. Snopes says that the specific slogan was Pepsi
cola hits the spot twelve full ounces. That's a lot,
twice as much for a nickel too. Pepsi cola is
the drink for you.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
Fun. It's a fun little nursery rhyme.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
A lot of people seem to take this as a
personal attack, like you're calling me cheap. You know, folks
were buying pepsi, but they were bindly luxury cola. They
were buying it to hide at home because they were
worried about looking like there were skin flints and they said,
like in this era, people would you would drink pepsi
(30:12):
if it was just you and the kids at the house,
but if guests came over, you would serve them coca cola.
And there was even a thing where people would like
pour pepsi into the glasses they gave people, but they
would bring out the coca cola bottle in the living room.
So it's like pepsi cola fraud.
Speaker 2 (30:29):
It was nuts.
Speaker 4 (30:30):
So true story here. When my family first moved from
Detroit to Atlanta, my mom wanted to live there, having
a house, right, my mom wanted to store and there's
a deal in pepsi, and she about a couple two
letters pepsi. Didn't think anything about it, and she said,
like people were like seriously offended. And I think this
might be much more of like you're in Atlanta, but
there is still like that whole you know, perception about
(30:52):
pepsi and coke where it's like, uh, yeah, you don't
serve it in certain parts parts of this country.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
Right right, this is not the up for you.
Speaker 3 (31:00):
It is jarring when you go to a fast food
restaurant or like even like a whatever sit down restaurant,
you order a coke and they're like, we only have
pepsi products and I'm just like, I'm fine. Yeah, you know,
there is a sort of like inherent sort of aggression
that comes with that in the in this part of
the country.
Speaker 2 (31:15):
It's true.
Speaker 1 (31:16):
Yeah, I usually will just take that as a sign
from the sign from the universe that today is a
water drinking day. Back when I was drinking more soda,
but also amc theaters.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
I just learned this.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
They got they got taken over by pepsi or they
got gentrified by pepsi. I went to watch Oppenheimer for
Friends of Ours and I ordered a coke and the
kid at the counter said, we only have pepsi. Hey,
you know what I did, don't I got.
Speaker 2 (31:43):
A bottled water? Yeah? Smart? What is that dasani?
Speaker 1 (31:47):
They Oh, gosh, Dosani's a coke product. Okay, what's the
pepsi equivalent of disani? I can't remember, but I bet
you they've got one.
Speaker 2 (31:55):
They have to. They have to.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
Yeah, So why you're why You're like, I'm googling cow
kited up. I'm sure we'll wreck awkwardida. Okay, that makes sense.
It was an aquiffina. It had to be so back
in the day because people were worried about looking like
cheap skates. They didn't want to be associated too strongly
with drinking pepsi.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
PEPs knew about damage control. Yeah that's not good.
Speaker 3 (32:18):
Okay, we've got to reverse this marketing train wreck because
clearly we have made a horrible mistake and we need
to revamp our image.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
Right, it's maybe we go ham in the other direction.
So they did.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
They did exactly that. They wanted a better catchphrase. So
from nineteen fifty three to the early nineteen sixty one
they had a different campaign, and the campaign's name was
be Sociable, which feels like communist propaganda, where your monocle exactly,
you know, pinky up when sipping this champagne of gola
(32:57):
from your tiny crystal goblin.
Speaker 3 (33:00):
Yeah, I mean seriously, you know they they totally you know,
jump the shark in the other direction. First, the past
pepsi is just for the poor, and now this one
is just for the like the upper crust, and that
doesn't sit well either. You guys are trying to reach
a general audience who keeps screwing this up.
Speaker 2 (33:20):
It's very interesting. Yeah, it was like it was like.
Speaker 1 (33:23):
They had some kind of weird Twilight Zone esque computer
that was saying if the poor.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
Don't. We will go for the rich.
Speaker 3 (33:34):
But you need Don Draper on the case man, he
would have come up with a way better catch ras.
Speaker 1 (33:39):
And the thing is, if you look at these ads,
you'll see pet people drinking pepsi in public group settings,
no longer hiding the shame of drinking pepsi cola. But
these folks who are depicted, they're all a little bit
too cookie cutter, a little bit too Norman Rockwell. And
this is right around the time gets super into.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
Rock and roll. People would to be edgy and rebel.
Speaker 3 (34:04):
Now isn't that funny, Because wasn't the early Coke advertising
was exactly that, Yeah, Norman Rockwell kind of stuff.
Speaker 2 (34:12):
But they but they got the timing right. They got
the timing right.
Speaker 3 (34:15):
Pepsi was a daylight and a dollar short, and they
like totally were behind the times. And then you know,
the tide had turned and Coke with I think I
think a big again. I think Coke's the better drink,
but much better marketing. They were always right finger on
the pulse. They invented freaking polar bears in Santa Claus. Yeah,
and they'll check me on the first one.
Speaker 1 (34:35):
They also had the They had their own share of missteps,
but they had a lot more successes. Their ratio was good.
Pepsi missed the youth market, the most powerful market in soda,
because they were they were increasingly looking like the avatar
of the suffocating traditional society and social roles.
Speaker 2 (34:58):
They hated rock and roll, you know.
Speaker 1 (35:00):
Pepsi was now the one saying no sock ops for you.
And so they realized this when they did some studies
and found that as a soda brand they were now
associated with struggling, married couples who are painfully budget conscious.
(35:21):
So they're not the fun drink anymore. They're the had
kids too early drink.
Speaker 3 (35:26):
Oh wow, okay, yeah, And they came up with another
banger of a slogan, absolutely mind boggling. Now it's Pepsi
for those who think young. It's so convoluted, it's basically
has no meaning.
Speaker 1 (35:42):
It's like Monty Burns, it's a Monty Burns idea. Now
it's Pepsi for those who think young.
Speaker 3 (35:49):
Why then, Now, It's like that part is a little
bit perplexing, and the idea of thinking young is inherently
a put on. Right, It's like you're you're already casting
your audience as a bunch of phonies who are actually
old but just doing their best to think.
Speaker 1 (36:07):
You or somehow cognitively impaired. This one only lasts from
nineteen sixty one to nineteen sixty three. Like you say,
it's a swing and a miss. But they had a
lot writing on this, so they went back to the
drawing board and they returned with come alive. You're at
the Pepsi generation.
Speaker 2 (36:25):
This was a success. Actual banger, actual chess. Yeah, really
good right here.
Speaker 3 (36:29):
I mean, if we're just spitballing slogans, wouldn't this be
the first one where you'd be like, that's good?
Speaker 1 (36:34):
Yeah, that's like pepsi banger slogans.
Speaker 2 (36:37):
For a drink.
Speaker 3 (36:37):
I think it's so weird and what's the word. It's
almost propagandistic. It's like you're it is for sure, but
like what makes a good one? It's all bullshit, Like
there's nothing about any drink that will make any of
this stuff true, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (36:52):
So it's just like, which one is the thing that
makes you feel a spark of hope and excitement around this?
Speaker 3 (37:00):
Sugar water carbonated beverett bad for you, really actively bad
for you?
Speaker 1 (37:07):
Yeah, there's a there is a brilliance to it because
it's incredibly inclusive. You're if you want to be in
the Pepsi generation, Yeah, you're part of a movement now
Star Treking.
Speaker 3 (37:19):
You know, Sorry, it just sounds the word generation just
sounds inherently futuristic to me because of Star Trek.
Speaker 2 (37:24):
I don't know why.
Speaker 1 (37:25):
That's just it sounds inherently massive to me. And so
both younger people who want to think of themselves as
hip and popular and older people who want to think
of themselves as youthful and hip, they like this. Pepsi
becomes associated with that youth popularity, success acceptance, Pepsi. They
even had a ditty that they put.
Speaker 2 (37:46):
In here, which.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
Maybe we might play a clip if we if we
find it.
Speaker 2 (37:52):
But what's it to the tune of is it its
own tune? It's like I'm trying to think it's imposed
a melody.
Speaker 3 (37:58):
Yeah, yeah, well I'm if you guys can't tell him
on the back end of being a little bit ill,
so my voice is a little bit shot, So I'm
not gonna attempt to sing because it would be sad.
But I was supposed to do like a rap, like
an eighties rap. There's a whole new way of living.
Pepsi helps to apply the drive. It's got a lot
to give to those who like to live because Pepsi
(38:19):
helps them come alive. It's the Pepsi generation coming at you,
going straw.
Speaker 2 (38:24):
I like that.
Speaker 3 (38:25):
Interpretational and the less I could do the mark come
alive though, what an invitation? Yeah right, yeah yeah in English? Uh,
the Pepsi boy, there we go.
Speaker 2 (38:35):
This is the term.
Speaker 1 (38:36):
Pepsi's market share expands. It explodes past the demographics, the
geopolitical newss good news, good news. The growth of the
Pepsi empire seems unstoppable until the new ad campaigns reached China,
where sales plummet. Uh, we're gonna have we can. I
explore a couple of different versions of the story, but
(38:58):
you know, the big takeaway. The big takeaway is that
because pepsi helps them come alive doesn't quite translate the
same way in the Chinese language. Well, first of all,
I think we've talked about this on stuff they don't
want you to know. China is obviously known for many things,
but one is censorship of American culture. So if you
(39:21):
have like films that play in China. There are versions
that you know, for the Chinese market that remove things
for cultural sensitivity purposes, and one of them is, I
believe up until pretty recently, they they weren't allowed to
have ghosts, Like ghosts is a thing where they like
they get no, that's a no go. Ghostbusters I think
did not you know, play in China and stuff like
(39:41):
that because of the cultural phenomenon of the ancestor worship.
I think that's accurate praying to your ancestors, revering you know,
the dead, and like treating them as though they were
still you know, have a place at your table. All
the shrines and all of that kind of stuff. It's
a big deal.
Speaker 3 (39:59):
So when you have a mass market media blitz promising
to raise the dead, you know, that's just absolutely insulting.
Speaker 2 (40:11):
How dare you right?
Speaker 1 (40:12):
It's yeah, the censorship is real with this and the
idea that like, okay, the way Pepsi pictures this is
come alive meaning to feel energized or Peppi with Pepsi
welcome folks.
Speaker 2 (40:28):
You can have that one.
Speaker 3 (40:30):
But that's the thing though, dude, Even to me, I
read come alive and that it can it's very broad
and vague, and it's like, maybe it's a phrase that
has fallen out of fashion, but I don't even think
about it like that. So for it to you know,
have to translate this again the feeling of what does
that mean? It's not something that there maybe is an
(40:50):
analog to in that language.
Speaker 1 (40:52):
Sure yeah, like a lot of idioms as well. So
the message translates to something along the lines of Pepsi
brings or dead ancestors.
Speaker 2 (41:01):
Back to life.
Speaker 1 (41:02):
And this anecdote is often quoted in marketing schools and
speeches and various things as a textbookcase of when advertising
and translation go wrong. But there are a couple of
issues with the story. First, a lot of versions claim
the entire slogan was come alive with pepsi, but the
real slogan is, as we said, come alive. You're in
(41:23):
the pepsi generation. And that might seem like splitting hairs
or soda bubbles. But in translation, small differences do yield
big results and big consequences.
Speaker 2 (41:33):
So there's another little wrinkle in the story. Most versions
don't specify which language got hit by the mistranslation. Ben,
I know you're a student of Chinese, and there are
different dialects. Of course, is Mandarin Cantonese, right, yeah, it's
a huge country. Mandarins the official language, Cantonese is very common,
(41:58):
and there are any other number of dialects and separate
languages for different ethnic groups. How similar are they which ones.
Speaker 3 (42:05):
Any like that's the same manner? Any Cantonese? Are we
talking like completely different?
Speaker 4 (42:12):
Or like?
Speaker 2 (42:12):
Is it sort of like maybe Dutch is to German?
I see? Yeah, so.
Speaker 1 (42:17):
They use the same character sets, like the same idiograms
and stuff, so wherever you go you can read the
same sentence, but the pronunciations can become mutually unintelligible. Mandarin
has four tones, but Cantonese has six, so it's much
more difficult at least wow for people to like honestly,
(42:40):
for people our age who have never tried to learn Cantonese,
it would be almost impossible. So it's it's tough, and
it does make a difference to figure out which language
this got mistranslated into. Other versions of the story. Sometimes
say the mistranslation didn't occur in China at all, that
it was in Thailand or Germany.
Speaker 2 (43:01):
But in anyway, how do we not have better records
of this?
Speaker 3 (43:04):
Though you'd think that like historians of marketing would have,
you know, got the clippings, you know what I mean,
there would be artifacts out there that could prove this
from different campaigns.
Speaker 1 (43:15):
I'm gonna say it's because PEPSI is not super proud
of it.
Speaker 3 (43:19):
Yeah, but we know, I mean, I guess this is
also probably pre Internet, so they probably were able to,
you know, do the best they could to pull any
examples of that stuff from the public record. But in
any case, you will hear the mistranslation phrase in one
of a handful of different ways, including come alive and
out of the grave with PEPSI works for Halloween maybe,
(43:41):
but not the rest of the year. And again with
the cultural stuff. This is wild, but it's so interesting
too because the cultural argument really is most profound, I
think with China because of that, you know, very important
spiritual connection to ancestors. Another one was PEPSI will bring
your ancestors back from the dead, right, and then bring
(44:01):
dead ancestors back from heaven.
Speaker 2 (44:03):
That sounds wow, that's a that's a okay, that's I'll
give it that.
Speaker 3 (44:08):
Yeah, I mean, it's are we talking are they zombies
now or are they like back like they were cemetery situation.
Speaker 2 (44:14):
What happens when you run out of pepsi? Right? They
don't do they turn?
Speaker 1 (44:19):
So with all these do they do they crave pepsi
right when they they've risen in the night for the
pepsi cola. With all the caveats were giving you, it
might sound like we're giving we're spinning a tall tale,
ridiculous historians. Uh, maybe a bit of bait and switch. However,
we have to have those caveats because this is still
(44:42):
probably I'm going to say probably true to some degree.
Pepsi has never once come out and denied that this occurred.
They have never made an official statement of any kind
about this, despite it being one of the most legendary
stories in all of Western marketing lore. And it makes
you think, you know, we're left with two conclusions. Maybe
(45:02):
pepsi did have a sort of stumble since it was
pretty widely reported by multiple otherwise solid sources. Or maybe
pepsi really brought people back from the dead and it
got covered up. You know, it's one of those two.
There is no in between.
Speaker 3 (45:16):
I mean, look, I might rethink my position on pepsi
if in fact did bring back you know, loved ones
from the dead.
Speaker 2 (45:23):
Yeah, I don't, but again, I need to know the rules.
Speaker 3 (45:25):
Isn't a monkey's pod type situation, you know, I just
there's a lot of questions, a lot of questions.
Speaker 1 (45:30):
A temporary thing, is it long lasting? Is there a
way to send people back again?
Speaker 2 (45:36):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (45:36):
We've got a lot of questions. We're looking for the
answers as we speak. Currently on a side note, maybe
this is where we end today. Currently on a side note.
Pepsi's name in Chinese characters translates to one hundred ways
to good luck, and Koch's name, Coca Cola's name translates
to quote to allow the mouth to be able to rejoice.
Speaker 2 (46:00):
Feel like, that's terrible, That is weird.
Speaker 3 (46:03):
There's a brand of some kind. It's candy or something.
I'm a picture.
Speaker 2 (46:08):
You know what it is.
Speaker 3 (46:08):
It's Twizzlers. Do you remember what Twizzler's slogan was, You
guys makes mouths happy. Oh, that's right, yeah, makes mouths happy.
Speaker 2 (46:19):
I'm guy.
Speaker 3 (46:20):
And they don't say mouths when they do it, they
speak it out loud and they say makes mouths happy.
And in the in the commercials in the nineties like
Pee Wee's playhouse style kind of weird clamation of giant
lips and red vine pulsating twizzlers going in and.
Speaker 2 (46:36):
Out of the mouths.
Speaker 3 (46:37):
It's a very very macabre, like those MTV bumpers from
those days, you know, and really weird stuff there was.
Speaker 1 (46:43):
There's an entire history we could do of weird advertising
slogans that aren't even mistranslations, the ones that have aged
so poorly that if you look at them now you
would assume they were mistranslations. But this also perhaps is
a continuing series, because there are many other other strange mistranslations,
(47:04):
some of which almost led to nuclear war, like we
will bury you slapping the shoe on the counter for
any history, and then some that are some that are
more comical, of course, like you can some Chinese shopkeepers
the way they wrote coca cola translates into bite the
wax tadpole.
Speaker 2 (47:25):
Oh yeah, if you heard that way, that for me, though,
the wet sprocket.
Speaker 1 (47:29):
That's that's specific enough for me that if I if
I was in a different country, I saw a drink
that was advertising itself as bite the wax tadpole, I'd
buy one. I would buy one and lose under like
two dollars.
Speaker 2 (47:42):
I would definitely try, no question.
Speaker 3 (47:44):
It also sounds like a really kind of fun expression
for like dying, you know, bite the wax tadpole.
Speaker 1 (47:51):
Straight out of a Jimmy Carter speech. There we go,
h yeah, tune in. Maybe we'll have an upcoming episode
on further mistranslations. Oh and well meaning astronomer who accidentally
started all the Mars conspiracies, etca, et cetera audible mention
to various unfortunate names of automobiles with this, thank you
(48:11):
very much to our super producer, mister Max Williams. Thank you,
of course to Jimmy Carter. And in defense of the translator,
we mentioned Seymour again, he's not incompetent, like we said,
it's just not everybody always has a great day.
Speaker 2 (48:27):
Yeah, no, it's true. Huge thanks to Alex Williams.
Speaker 3 (48:30):
Composed to our theme, Christophraciotis needs, Jeff Coates here in
spirit A J. Jacobs the Puzzler, Jonathan Strickland the quizt
and you Ben, my linguistic writer Die and also with
Jo We'll see next Niebooks. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
(48:54):
visit the iHeartRadio app Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
(00:27):
the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much
for tuning in in whatever language you wish. We also
are obviously recording this in English with the help of
our super producer, mister Max Williams.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Ty Hoe on Young Lussio.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
Yes, Yes, funny, funny story, Noel, I think you may
have heard this one the first time I was in Germany.
I was there for several weeks and I this was
pre uh translation apps, pre cell phone, and I have
practiced for some time a phrase that was very proud of,
(01:07):
and a phrase was this. When people came up to
me and inevitably spoke German, I would say, I would
try my best to keep up. Obviously I couldn't. And
then when I got when the water got too deep
for me linguistically, I would hold up a hand and
I would say, I'm sorry, my German is not good enough.
Can we continue this conversation in English?
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Ooh, that's a power but not a power move, a
super move.
Speaker 3 (01:31):
It's just a really very utilitarian phrase because it's respecting
their language and sort of putting you at the disadvantage
where it's like, listen, I gave it my all. You
are my intellectual superior, and I would really appreciate it
if you would talk to me like a child. So
I tried this, and maybe linguistic superior, but you have
(01:53):
to try, you know what I mean. Yeah, I'm just
I'm overstating the case. But it is very self deprecating
in a positive way, which I think would put them
in your corner.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Thanks, man, one would hope. But for again, for quite
some time, I would be in these conversations, I would
stop and say, I'm sorry, my English or my German
is not good enough. Could we continue in English? And
every single time I said this, the person I was
speaking to would kind of get a chill over them.
There would be some ice in the room, and then
(02:23):
they would usually say something like because Germans all speak excellent.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
English these days.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
Sure They would usually say something like, very well, I
was asking if you needed blah blah blah, or I
was asking the way to the you know.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
The aldi.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
And then at the very end of this trip, I'm
walking into the hostel and I bumped shoulders accidentally with
somebody walking out, and then she says this thing, and
I say I'm sorry, my German's not good enough? Can
we continue in English? And then she says, in a
perfect California accent. By the way, she says, you're an asshole.
(03:03):
And then the lady at the counter starts laughing and
she says, do you know what you've been saying? I said,
oh no, here's what I've been saying. I've been saying
to native German speakers, I'm sorry your German is not
good enough? Can we continue this conversation in English? And
I'm saying it with the worst American accent. Oh gosh, apologies,
(03:25):
good people of Berlin.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
That is perfect.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
That is a perfect example of delete into what we're
talking about today. But Ben in theory, like I said,
I mean, I was surprised when you said there was
this icy reactions. I was like, no, that's a pretty thoughtful,
respectful little thing to say, and if you had translated
it correctly, it would have been a super move. But
instead it sunk your linguistic battleship.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
Yes, with apologies to all the good people of Berlin
and the Berlin metro area or I guess Frankfurt as well.
You are no brown. I am Ben Bullet. This is
ridiculous history.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
True, it is that very thing, and that just really quickly.
Speaker 3 (04:01):
While we're on the topic of Berlin in funny translations,
when I was traveling in Berlin with my buddy Frank,
friend of the show, he he had done his duo
lingo best, you know, to get some phrases up for
the trip. And the thing that I'll always remember is
when he was trying to order some pastries at like
a train station and he kind of got flummixed and
(04:22):
couldn't think of the word. He just said it in English,
but in a really thick German accent, and it was
not like intentional. It was clearly like his brain wiring
just kind of like fritzed out.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
And that was what he did in the panic of
the moment.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
Is you know, ordering in English dis stressful sometimes, let
alone trying to do it in a foreign language.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
But I will rib him about that until the day
we die.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
What did the what did the pastry seller say?
Speaker 2 (04:48):
How did they I.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
Don't think they even clocked it. I don't think it
was an issue, but I just it was.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
I just was.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
We were also a little punchy, you know, from time
differences and things like that, so it was kind of
a little bit dreamles, but that was just one of
the funniest things.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
That's amazing.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
And you know, when you travel or whenever, when you travel,
whether across physical distance or across a linguistic gap, these
kinds of foibles and little hiccups are not uncommon. It
was weird because one thing that expired our exploration today,
our good buddy Josh Clark, had reached out in advance
(05:23):
of an episode they did on Esperanto, which is a constructed,
nifty language, chock full of puns, all kinds of cool stuff,
And we started thinking about how translation works. You know,
are there really some things that you can say in
one language but not in another? How often do even
the world's smartest, sharpest people get it wrong. This led
(05:45):
to what, honestly Noel might end up being a continuing series,
the history of famous mistranslations. I was thinking, I don't
know if you ever heard this would but maybe we
start off.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
With what I was not familiar with.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
Jimmy Carter one time said that he wanted to leave
the US forever and have sex with everyone in Poland.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
Well, and this is funny because Jimmy Carter, you know,
famous sweetheart. So you know, I'm sure there was no
harm intended, but yeah, I mean, especially when you're like
a traveling dignitary, these kinds of things can actually have
real world consequences in terms of like relationships between countries
or god forbid, even you know, escalation of conflict.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
Right.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
Yeah, So let's travel back. It's December twenty ninth, nineteen
seventy seven. Jimmy Carter is kicking off his really like
his first field trip as president, and he's going on
a six country tour and the first stop is.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Poland six country too, is that?
Speaker 3 (06:58):
I guess it's only a whistle stur if it's in
America and by train, right, but it is sort of
like a foreign version of that, you know, where he's
not kind of trying to show face, you know, say hey,
I'm the new guy, check out my chops and let's
make friends.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
Yeah, he's got a lot to prove to the world
and domestically to the United States, and as we know
with the history of the Carter administration, he had a
lot of problems proving himself domestically in policy.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
It was a tough time.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
But you know what, when you're the US president and
you land in a country. It's not the way that
the MAXs and the Knowles and the bends of the
world land. You don't have to stand in line, right,
you don't really have to go through customs. You get
off and you meet you get off the plane, you
meet a ton of dignitaries, and there's like a crowd
(07:51):
of people who are either angry at you or really
happy to see you. Either way, they want something. And
so Jimmy gets off the plague and he's got this
big speech he's going to do for Polish politicians and
activists and protesters. He gets welcomed by the leader of
Poland's Communist Party, Edward Garrick, and then five hundred other
(08:15):
people who are just hanging out and they've been waiting
all night in the bitter cold, in the snow, just
to see him. So he has to make this a
ridal a glimpse, right, right, So he has to make
his arrival worth the wait.
Speaker 3 (08:29):
Yeah, he does, and he did just that, perhaps not
in the way that he was intending or in a
way that would be pleasing to the nation of Poland.
So before we get into where this thing went horribly horribly,
a arrived let's give a little bit of context. It
was the late seventies, which is an extremely sensitive period
(08:49):
to your point earlier Ben for this nation Poland. Carter
and his team were there to talk business in terms
of like you know, business commerce between Poland and the
United States. Poland wanted more export markets in the US
and they were asking for around two hundred million dollars
worth of agricultural export credits.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
And we don't need to get too in the weeds
about that.
Speaker 3 (09:12):
I don't think I fully understand what export credits means.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
Yeah, I agree, we don't need to get too into
the weeds because we might ourselves mistranslate what that means.
But from the base level understanding, it means that the
US was being asked to degree yeah, yeah, to not
have taxes or higher you know duty's and tariffs and
(09:37):
stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
I see.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
But it also sort of sets up a tone where
it's like, this is how this is the kind of
business we're going to be doing.
Speaker 4 (09:43):
And I know, I think maybe what it also do
is it's like we're going to do at least this much,
So it gives that's what I mean.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it sort of sets the tone of
the business transaction, right.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
Yeah, and on the other side of the conversation, and
you know, kind of the other side of the iron
curtain at this point, because it's Jimmy's first field trip
as the president, he again has a lot to prove.
And his head foreign policy advisor at the time is
a guy. Uh we all love this name, Zebec new
Brznetski un he himself.
Speaker 3 (10:16):
First, I was having a hard time with the big
new Okay, yeah, well done.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
He's he's He is also a Polish origin.
Speaker 4 (10:23):
Also, I gotta jump in here. The last name has
a Z, then an E, then another z.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
It's polish Man. Polish is a famously difficult language for
like people growing up in Poland. It's a difficult language.
Because his foreign policy advisor is himself a Polish origin.
They have kept a close eye on the country and
they're seeing the economy stalling, They're seeing growing economic instability,
(10:52):
and the communist Polish public is increasingly asking, what if
our current status quo is the wrong status quo? What
if there's a better answer.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
So this is the.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
Perfect time for a pro democracy force like the US
president to come through and you know, lay down some charms,
spit some game.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
Yeah, and he spits said game with the help of
a State Department provided translator by the name of Stephen Seymour,
which is very vanilla sounding name. A thirty one year
old fellow, and you know, not a bad dude by nature.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
But let's just say maybe he lacked a little bit
of experience. He had the bona fides though, right, he
was a polyglot.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
Most Americans are not able to say that, you know,
I could barely speak English, you know, Felia man, he
always very impressive when you go abroad and you realize
how it is just standard for folks to know multiple languages.
I feel like that is a kind of brain capacity
that I no longer possess. But again, he wasn't incompetence.
(12:05):
He was a great translator of Polish and Russian and
French texts into English. And he had a real solid
reputation for translating poetry. And I wanted to bring this
up too earlier, Ben, because translating conversations versus translating like literature, right,
or poetry or text the Bible even you know, there's
(12:25):
so many things in the kind of the umami that
you give the translation in order to make the feeling
of it translate to the new language, because you know,
works of art and literature, they are meant to be
felt as much as they are meant to be read
and interpreted. So it's like he was maybe working with
(12:45):
a little bit more nuanced than maybe was required for
this particular gig.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
I don't know, what do you think?
Speaker 1 (12:51):
Yeah, I mean, you're absolutely right about that art of translation,
you know, and it is incredibly differentfficult to convey tone
and context or you know, the vibe for lack of
a better word, in conversation. If you're just translating a
scientific text, then the task is a little bit easier.
(13:12):
But this, dude is it's kind of like being asked
to do freestyle poetry from one language to the next
on the fly. And Polish was his fourth language. He
was Russian born, So translating from English to Polish is
like an extra plot twist for this got it an
(13:33):
extra permutation.
Speaker 3 (13:35):
Just to go back to our conversation with aj, you
know about like the kind of levels of cipher's. You know,
you start to get kind of cipher's within cipher's and
that can really affect the complexity of the operation.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
Yeah, and as a result. In his initial speech, and
again this is in front of more than five hundred people,
including the leader of the country, he makes.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
Three big errors.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
The first one is he means to say, I'm very
glad to be in Poland. The way Seymour translates this,
it sounds like he is telling the crowd he has
abandoned the US forever and he's going to live in
Poland from now on.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
That's like his opening line.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
And bless his heart. We got to use that because
that's something that he would have said. Yeah, can you
imagine him saying all this stuff in Polish? Given it
his Southern best, you know what I mean. I mean,
it's probably comical. If there's tape of it that exists,
I would love to hear him, because you know, he's
doing it with an open heart and trying his best
(14:36):
to be a man of the people that he's communicating with.
But I'm sure it was cringe, you know, listening to
Southern bell like Jimmy Carter trying to muddle his way
through Polish.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
So what's happening is Jimmy Carter is saying his prepared
English speech and then it's kind of like when you
have a ASL interpreter who's standing. Oh so he was,
it's actually speaking Polish. Yeah, I don't think so.
Speaker 3 (15:03):
Okay, sorry, my fantasy has been no, no, what's cool.
I just my fantasy has been shattered. It's fine.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
It would it would be amazing though, and it would
have also been a tremendous flex where he is speaking.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
I guess that's not really done, you know, in terms
of like a foreign dignitary trying to speak the language.
But you do hear things like ben I and berlin a,
you know, but that's just sort of like that's a
big deal for that. I think they put a lot
of weight into them attempting to actually speak the language,
and usually those things get pull quoted quite frequently.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
And I think one of the issues that we see
even now with this kind of interaction is geopolitical. Like,
for instance, if there were a US president that speaks
fluent Russian in public conversation regarding Russia or to the
Russian people, they're probably still going to speak in English,
(15:55):
like Vladimir Putin knows English, but it's seen as sort
of a like rolling over and showing the belly to
not speaking your own language, which I think is a
little bit cold warish, but sure, but that's what he's doing.
So second one, this is a weird one. Carter is
giving a kind of in depth shout out to the
(16:18):
Polish Constitution from seventeen ninety one, and in his speech
he says this constitution is one of the greatest monuments
to human rights in the entirety of the seventeen hundreds.
But the way Seymour translates it, it comes off like
a really sarcastic sounding roast, like something from the Colbert Report,
(16:39):
sort of like.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
One of the three greatest monuments of human rights of
the entire.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
And it's all in the it's all in the way
they order it, because he lists this one thing as greatest,
and he lists this second thing, and then he says,
and you know, third.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
Place, coming in third, solid third, you know.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
So Carter, by the way that you're founding document exactly, Yeah,
welcome to your bronze medal as a country. And Carter
still doesn't know anything's wrong. He's probably he's probably thinking, well,
maybe they just don't react the same way American crowds do.
Speaker 3 (17:22):
Which they maybe don't, you know, I mean, very likely
there would think about all the things that would have
been in play, like the decorum, or maybe there would
be a little confusion not necessarily gonna erupt into outright aggression.
So it would be kind of confusing being up there
and then not really knowing because you're already coming into
a situation where you're not familiar with all of the
(17:43):
cultural nuances. And then you're starting to see some head
scratching and you're like, oh, okay, well maybe I'm killing it.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
Who am I to say, let's just sally for it.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
Maybe they just don't cheer here. Maybe that's an American.
Speaker 5 (17:55):
They're very reserved Polish, right. Sure, and then so he
doesn't know anything's going wrong. Sure, he's a very smart guy,
So surely he's getting a weird vibe. And he says,
I would like to learn more about the desires of
the Polish people.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
Naughty Jimmy Cotty, I love it. Well, what he means
there is that he, therefore America.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
Wants to know what the public dreams about when it
comes to early future of their country.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
Yeah, how is it translated? Well, I don't know know.
Speaker 3 (18:30):
I mean, maybe it's just the way you said it been,
But I get The word desire is a sticky wicket,
my friends, you know, because it's like it could be
used formerly like I desire to make a pact of peace,
you know, with this nation. But also if you don't
continue the formality on the back end and you kind
of mix it up a little bit, it can sound
(18:52):
real horny, you know, by accident. I think that's why
I still don't like the It's my Pleasure at Chick
fil A weird me out.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
It just sounds a little horny.
Speaker 3 (19:01):
I don't know why, And especially when paired with the
kind of puritanical roots of that company, it just sounds
like repressed horny.
Speaker 2 (19:08):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
Also how that review is just too much.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
You know what, very weird. It's very like Robot. It's
like eight thirty in the morning.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
Also your fifteen Courtney, just give me the weird chicken biscuit.
Speaker 3 (19:21):
I think I basically picked up on the same nuances
that the Polish were picking up because more or less
out of like you know, he they interpreted what he
said as like I want to know you all.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
Sexually exactly exactly. It came to Medley in quiet storm. Yeah,
you're on the money, though it translated with you're all
the money with both Chick fil A and this by
the way, it translated in a way that meant to
the Polish people in the audience, I specifically meet Jimmy Carter.
Want to have sex with all of.
Speaker 3 (19:53):
You, all of all at the same time.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
We could we can take and do a numbers system
that one, you know, one by one everybody. Logistics aren't
What's what's concerning me right now? I just want it?
Here's my question?
Speaker 4 (20:13):
Was Roslin there also?
Speaker 2 (20:14):
I think she was can get in the mix it.
We talked on the plane, We preyed on it. She's schools.
She likes your vibe too. We're opening up our relationships
your entire country because what's more American than that, you know? Uh,
it's bigger than all of us.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
Yes, so uh this thing was actually scandalous enough that
the local newspapers decided to censor themselves. So the many
reporters weren't there. He didn't he didn't know any of this,
none the wiser. Yeah, exactly. So they toned the statement
down when they report on this, and what they say
instead of I want to have sex with you is uh,
(20:53):
I want to have carnal knowledge of the Polish, which
is still not it's not improvement cardinal. It's just I
don't know what it is about that word cardinal. Just
it's because also the idea of consumption of EAI.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
I'm gonna say, it's like I want to devour you,
I want to devour your.
Speaker 4 (21:11):
Flesh makes me just think of popcorn. I mean, I
think that what makes this so terrible is is Jimmy Carter.
We're talking about you. It's like sweetheart, Yeah, this wholesome sweetheart.
Like I think, Ben, you're the one who told me
this lie. But it's like Jimmy Carter might not been
the best president, but he might have been the best
person who was president.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
Oh continues, I mean he's not did he just die? No,
Roslyn passed away.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
I'm sorry, he's he's I'm not. He's so old and
continues to do amazing work, you know, with his foundations,
and it's just a regularly I think I think he
like insists on his presidential kind of detail and like
you know, property and supplements that you get to be
the bare bones minimum because he doesn't want anyone to
have to pay for his life. And and he does
(21:55):
all this habitat for humanity stuff like super legitimately awesome
guy continuously so you know, throughout his career. Again, maybe
not the best president. This diplomacy stuff is obviously really tricky,
but what a guy. You know, he will go down
in history as one of the great philanthropists I think
of of our time.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
Well said, he's also he's also he is in hospice
as we record now, and.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
I knew he wasn't. Well, that's that was triggering for many.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
A while, right by some time now, Yeah, for many years,
he for many years he would.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
But he makes every now and again not but he did.
Speaker 3 (22:31):
I mean, but within the last handful of years he
would show up to big, big deal things. But yeah, anyway,
we interviewed him at the Carter Center a few years
back for how stuff works in the house stuff works
days and I think our pal Matt Frederick has I
think it was Matt, one one of our longtime friends
(22:52):
has Uh has a great story about thinking, holy crap,
I have to put a lava leer mike on Jimmy Carter.
For any non audio nerds, lava lier mic is the
little thing you have to clip and drop down someone's shirt. Yeah,
it requires getting a little cardinal so they've got some
cardinal knowledge of Jimmy Carter.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
So so this is crazy because Jimmy doesn't know, the
Americans on the team don't know, and the transfer.
Speaker 3 (23:20):
Translators are moving on to another gig or at least
he's like got his hands full just doing the day
to day of translating throughout these meetings. So he's not
even thinking twice about what's just transpired in this speech, right, he.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
Doesn't know until two days later when a local journalist
finally ask him what's going on. It's sort of like,
have you ever had a great day or a great
meeting and then you realize that your fly has been
down the whole time. It's kind of like that.
Speaker 3 (23:48):
Yeah, it may be even worse, because this is just
like the biggest whoops, Like you thought you killed it,
You thought everything was good, you did your job well,
and then it turns out way no, you had one
job and you did it not well at all, And
now you've got to deal with the backlash and you're
probably gonna get fired, which I believe did quietly happen.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
Yeah, this is this is crazy.
Speaker 1 (24:13):
So he he's been busting his humps, Like you said,
our translairacymore for the preceding forty eight hours handling all
this other stuff as an interpreter. And then there's a
final formal banquet and he has removed from that banquet.
It's not an improvement, scored it out. Yeah, their last
(24:33):
minute escort or their last minute interpreter rather couldn't do
his job because Jimmy Carter has somewhattle strong southern axioms.
Speaker 3 (24:44):
A bit of a drawl bit, if you will. He's
got a god molding a slip of molasses in there, and.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
It really likes to roll around inside.
Speaker 3 (24:53):
The word just make a meal of it, you know,
right right, never metal phrase that didn't need some shoeing,
and the.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
That's so dumb, No, keep it back.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
And so this interpreter was listening to this and the
poor guys thinking is this even English? And so he
literally just sits there until the interpreter from the Polish government,
presumably sighing theatrically, says, well, the president you see needs
(25:25):
to follow it.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
Yeah, there were some words spoken.
Speaker 3 (25:30):
I can't speak to the quality of them, but I
would love to hear a translation attempt at least exactly.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
So, like you said, this could have been a huge snaffoo,
a big scandal, But luckily it didn't scuttle US Polish relations.
When Carter returned to the US, they continued to work
with this country until the end of communism. And you know,
we can't say for sure whether he managed to bang
out the entire nation of communist Poland one at a
(26:04):
time or in a group. We do know, like you said,
that he was happily married and monogamous for the entirety
of his adult life, So it seems unlikely that he
did this, just think of the logistics. And it also
seems unlikely that he desired to in the first place.
Speaker 3 (26:21):
Oh yes, it would have been his pleasure to do so.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
Jimmy Carter, What a guy.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
And we're back Pepsi. Oh, pepsi. You guys like pepsi
back when you know soda drinking?
Speaker 2 (26:41):
I don't like. I don't. I don't like pepsi. Oh no, no,
good pepsi pop is good.
Speaker 4 (26:45):
I can't even fake it.
Speaker 3 (26:48):
No, dude, it's just I mean, I like some pepsi products,
but pepsi is an inferior cola. I'm sorry it has
got nothing to do with my Georgia roots. You know,
I have no skin in the game politically or terms
of loyal brand loyalty. Coca Cola Classic is just the
superior cola. Pepsi tastes weird, I don't. I don't got
a word in mouthfield. Yes it's weird.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
It stays with you a little more in the mouth itself,
and it's I almost feel like.
Speaker 3 (27:16):
It's more sugar srapy. Yes, it's denser or something. It's weird, you.
Speaker 4 (27:20):
Guys known like' like furnette.
Speaker 3 (27:24):
I feel it's like a punishment. Drink it like coats
the inside of your mouth. Whatever it's, it.
Speaker 4 (27:29):
Just lives there. It's it's now a roommate in your mouth.
Speaker 3 (27:32):
Brought to you by so uh yeah, but again Pepsi.
You know the Pepsi brass is listening. Plenty of great
pepsi products. Sure, I prefer to to coke products.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
Right, It's like how you don't you can love a
band and not need to love every album, right.
Speaker 3 (27:50):
So please please give us money pepsi. I'm sorry, We'll
take all of the buddy, we will. We will drink
pepsi on the air. So before do you know we
may have talked about this before, but there's this kind
of there's a genre of music called Plunderphonics where it's
like a lot of kind of satirical use of samples
and you know, news clips in this audio collage. But
(28:11):
there's this group called Negative Land I think we've talked about.
Oh yeah, and they made a record called Dyspepsi that
entirely uses like clips from Pepsi commercials and all kinds
of weird stuff and it's like it is a rop
I highly recommend you checking it out. It'll make you
either crave pepsi or never want to drink a pepsi ever.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
Again, it's great for that to be in the conversation
here because we're talking a lot about pepsi's at campaigns
and they've had a struggle with that. You know, we
are longtime residents of the Atlanta metro area, so we're
clearly from the Coca Cola empire, but it's important to
establish that personal taste aside, we bear no ill will
(28:51):
towards the land of Pepsi. It is true, however, that
Pepsi ran into some famous weird translation issues when they
sought to expand internationally, like I didn't know this, but
for many decades, like dating back to the late nineteen thirties,
pepsi was considered the lower end, as you said, like
(29:11):
the inferior soda. It's and it's because they tried to
advertise themselves as a money saver. Their official slogan from
thirty nine to nineteen fifty was twice as much for
a nickel.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
Yeah, okay, so it's like, are.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
We as good? Well, you get twice as much?
Speaker 3 (29:31):
Yeah, what's that checkers? You gotta eat? Yeah, and one
hundred percent. Snopes says that the specific slogan was Pepsi
cola hits the spot twelve full ounces. That's a lot,
twice as much for a nickel too. Pepsi cola is
the drink for you.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
Fun. It's a fun little nursery rhyme.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
A lot of people seem to take this as a
personal attack, like you're calling me cheap. You know, folks
were buying pepsi, but they were bindly luxury cola. They
were buying it to hide at home because they were
worried about looking like there were skin flints and they said,
like in this era, people would you would drink pepsi
(30:12):
if it was just you and the kids at the house,
but if guests came over, you would serve them coca cola.
And there was even a thing where people would like
pour pepsi into the glasses they gave people, but they
would bring out the coca cola bottle in the living room.
So it's like pepsi cola fraud.
Speaker 2 (30:29):
It was nuts.
Speaker 4 (30:30):
So true story here. When my family first moved from
Detroit to Atlanta, my mom wanted to live there, having
a house, right, my mom wanted to store and there's
a deal in pepsi, and she about a couple two
letters pepsi. Didn't think anything about it, and she said,
like people were like seriously offended. And I think this
might be much more of like you're in Atlanta, but
there is still like that whole you know, perception about
(30:52):
pepsi and coke where it's like, uh, yeah, you don't
serve it in certain parts parts of this country.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
Right right, this is not the up for you.
Speaker 3 (31:00):
It is jarring when you go to a fast food
restaurant or like even like a whatever sit down restaurant,
you order a coke and they're like, we only have
pepsi products and I'm just like, I'm fine. Yeah, you know,
there is a sort of like inherent sort of aggression
that comes with that in the in this part of
the country.
Speaker 2 (31:15):
It's true.
Speaker 1 (31:16):
Yeah, I usually will just take that as a sign
from the sign from the universe that today is a
water drinking day. Back when I was drinking more soda,
but also amc theaters.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
I just learned this.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
They got they got taken over by pepsi or they
got gentrified by pepsi. I went to watch Oppenheimer for
Friends of Ours and I ordered a coke and the
kid at the counter said, we only have pepsi. Hey,
you know what I did, don't I got.
Speaker 2 (31:43):
A bottled water? Yeah? Smart? What is that dasani?
Speaker 1 (31:47):
They Oh, gosh, Dosani's a coke product. Okay, what's the
pepsi equivalent of disani? I can't remember, but I bet
you they've got one.
Speaker 2 (31:55):
They have to. They have to.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
Yeah, So why you're why You're like, I'm googling cow
kited up. I'm sure we'll wreck awkwardida. Okay, that makes sense.
It was an aquiffina. It had to be so back
in the day because people were worried about looking like
cheap skates. They didn't want to be associated too strongly
with drinking pepsi.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
PEPs knew about damage control. Yeah that's not good.
Speaker 3 (32:18):
Okay, we've got to reverse this marketing train wreck because
clearly we have made a horrible mistake and we need
to revamp our image.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
Right, it's maybe we go ham in the other direction.
So they did.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
They did exactly that. They wanted a better catchphrase. So
from nineteen fifty three to the early nineteen sixty one
they had a different campaign, and the campaign's name was
be Sociable, which feels like communist propaganda, where your monocle exactly,
you know, pinky up when sipping this champagne of gola
(32:57):
from your tiny crystal goblin.
Speaker 3 (33:00):
Yeah, I mean seriously, you know they they totally you know,
jump the shark in the other direction. First, the past
pepsi is just for the poor, and now this one
is just for the like the upper crust, and that
doesn't sit well either. You guys are trying to reach
a general audience who keeps screwing this up.
Speaker 2 (33:20):
It's very interesting. Yeah, it was like it was like.
Speaker 1 (33:23):
They had some kind of weird Twilight Zone esque computer
that was saying if the poor.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
Don't. We will go for the rich.
Speaker 3 (33:34):
But you need Don Draper on the case man, he
would have come up with a way better catch ras.
Speaker 1 (33:39):
And the thing is, if you look at these ads,
you'll see pet people drinking pepsi in public group settings,
no longer hiding the shame of drinking pepsi cola. But
these folks who are depicted, they're all a little bit
too cookie cutter, a little bit too Norman Rockwell. And
this is right around the time gets super into.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
Rock and roll. People would to be edgy and rebel.
Speaker 3 (34:04):
Now isn't that funny, Because wasn't the early Coke advertising
was exactly that, Yeah, Norman Rockwell kind of stuff.
Speaker 2 (34:12):
But they but they got the timing right. They got
the timing right.
Speaker 3 (34:15):
Pepsi was a daylight and a dollar short, and they
like totally were behind the times. And then you know,
the tide had turned and Coke with I think I
think a big again. I think Coke's the better drink,
but much better marketing. They were always right finger on
the pulse. They invented freaking polar bears in Santa Claus. Yeah,
and they'll check me on the first one.
Speaker 1 (34:35):
They also had the They had their own share of missteps,
but they had a lot more successes. Their ratio was good.
Pepsi missed the youth market, the most powerful market in soda,
because they were they were increasingly looking like the avatar
of the suffocating traditional society and social roles.
Speaker 2 (34:58):
They hated rock and roll, you know.
Speaker 1 (35:00):
Pepsi was now the one saying no sock ops for you.
And so they realized this when they did some studies
and found that as a soda brand they were now
associated with struggling, married couples who are painfully budget conscious.
(35:21):
So they're not the fun drink anymore. They're the had
kids too early drink.
Speaker 3 (35:26):
Oh wow, okay, yeah, And they came up with another
banger of a slogan, absolutely mind boggling. Now it's Pepsi
for those who think young. It's so convoluted, it's basically
has no meaning.
Speaker 1 (35:42):
It's like Monty Burns, it's a Monty Burns idea. Now
it's Pepsi for those who think young.
Speaker 3 (35:49):
Why then, Now, It's like that part is a little
bit perplexing, and the idea of thinking young is inherently
a put on. Right, It's like you're you're already casting
your audience as a bunch of phonies who are actually
old but just doing their best to think.
Speaker 1 (36:07):
You or somehow cognitively impaired. This one only lasts from
nineteen sixty one to nineteen sixty three. Like you say,
it's a swing and a miss. But they had a
lot writing on this, so they went back to the
drawing board and they returned with come alive. You're at
the Pepsi generation.
Speaker 2 (36:25):
This was a success. Actual banger, actual chess. Yeah, really
good right here.
Speaker 3 (36:29):
I mean, if we're just spitballing slogans, wouldn't this be
the first one where you'd be like, that's good?
Speaker 1 (36:34):
Yeah, that's like pepsi banger slogans.
Speaker 2 (36:37):
For a drink.
Speaker 3 (36:37):
I think it's so weird and what's the word. It's
almost propagandistic. It's like you're it is for sure, but
like what makes a good one? It's all bullshit, Like
there's nothing about any drink that will make any of
this stuff true, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (36:52):
So it's just like, which one is the thing that
makes you feel a spark of hope and excitement around this?
Speaker 3 (37:00):
Sugar water carbonated beverett bad for you, really actively bad
for you?
Speaker 1 (37:07):
Yeah, there's a there is a brilliance to it because
it's incredibly inclusive. You're if you want to be in
the Pepsi generation, Yeah, you're part of a movement now
Star Treking.
Speaker 3 (37:19):
You know, Sorry, it just sounds the word generation just
sounds inherently futuristic to me because of Star Trek.
Speaker 2 (37:24):
I don't know why.
Speaker 1 (37:25):
That's just it sounds inherently massive to me. And so
both younger people who want to think of themselves as
hip and popular and older people who want to think
of themselves as youthful and hip, they like this. Pepsi
becomes associated with that youth popularity, success acceptance, Pepsi. They
even had a ditty that they put.
Speaker 2 (37:46):
In here, which.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
Maybe we might play a clip if we if we
find it.
Speaker 2 (37:52):
But what's it to the tune of is it its
own tune? It's like I'm trying to think it's imposed
a melody.
Speaker 3 (37:58):
Yeah, yeah, well I'm if you guys can't tell him
on the back end of being a little bit ill,
so my voice is a little bit shot, So I'm
not gonna attempt to sing because it would be sad.
But I was supposed to do like a rap, like
an eighties rap. There's a whole new way of living.
Pepsi helps to apply the drive. It's got a lot
to give to those who like to live because Pepsi
(38:19):
helps them come alive. It's the Pepsi generation coming at you,
going straw.
Speaker 2 (38:24):
I like that.
Speaker 3 (38:25):
Interpretational and the less I could do the mark come
alive though, what an invitation? Yeah right, yeah yeah in English? Uh,
the Pepsi boy, there we go.
Speaker 2 (38:35):
This is the term.
Speaker 1 (38:36):
Pepsi's market share expands. It explodes past the demographics, the
geopolitical newss good news, good news. The growth of the
Pepsi empire seems unstoppable until the new ad campaigns reached China,
where sales plummet. Uh, we're gonna have we can. I
explore a couple of different versions of the story, but
(38:58):
you know, the big takeaway. The big takeaway is that
because pepsi helps them come alive doesn't quite translate the
same way in the Chinese language. Well, first of all,
I think we've talked about this on stuff they don't
want you to know. China is obviously known for many things,
but one is censorship of American culture. So if you
(39:21):
have like films that play in China. There are versions
that you know, for the Chinese market that remove things
for cultural sensitivity purposes, and one of them is, I
believe up until pretty recently, they they weren't allowed to
have ghosts, Like ghosts is a thing where they like
they get no, that's a no go. Ghostbusters I think
did not you know, play in China and stuff like
(39:41):
that because of the cultural phenomenon of the ancestor worship.
I think that's accurate praying to your ancestors, revering you know,
the dead, and like treating them as though they were
still you know, have a place at your table. All
the shrines and all of that kind of stuff. It's
a big deal.
Speaker 3 (39:59):
So when you have a mass market media blitz promising
to raise the dead, you know, that's just absolutely insulting.
Speaker 2 (40:11):
How dare you right?
Speaker 1 (40:12):
It's yeah, the censorship is real with this and the
idea that like, okay, the way Pepsi pictures this is
come alive meaning to feel energized or Peppi with Pepsi
welcome folks.
Speaker 2 (40:28):
You can have that one.
Speaker 3 (40:30):
But that's the thing though, dude, Even to me, I
read come alive and that it can it's very broad
and vague, and it's like, maybe it's a phrase that
has fallen out of fashion, but I don't even think
about it like that. So for it to you know,
have to translate this again the feeling of what does
that mean? It's not something that there maybe is an
(40:50):
analog to in that language.
Speaker 1 (40:52):
Sure yeah, like a lot of idioms as well. So
the message translates to something along the lines of Pepsi
brings or dead ancestors.
Speaker 2 (41:01):
Back to life.
Speaker 1 (41:02):
And this anecdote is often quoted in marketing schools and
speeches and various things as a textbookcase of when advertising
and translation go wrong. But there are a couple of
issues with the story. First, a lot of versions claim
the entire slogan was come alive with pepsi, but the
real slogan is, as we said, come alive. You're in
(41:23):
the pepsi generation. And that might seem like splitting hairs
or soda bubbles. But in translation, small differences do yield
big results and big consequences.
Speaker 2 (41:33):
So there's another little wrinkle in the story. Most versions
don't specify which language got hit by the mistranslation. Ben,
I know you're a student of Chinese, and there are
different dialects. Of course, is Mandarin Cantonese, right, yeah, it's
a huge country. Mandarins the official language, Cantonese is very common,
(41:58):
and there are any other number of dialects and separate
languages for different ethnic groups. How similar are they which ones.
Speaker 3 (42:05):
Any like that's the same manner? Any Cantonese? Are we
talking like completely different?
Speaker 4 (42:12):
Or like?
Speaker 2 (42:12):
Is it sort of like maybe Dutch is to German?
I see? Yeah, so.
Speaker 1 (42:17):
They use the same character sets, like the same idiograms
and stuff, so wherever you go you can read the
same sentence, but the pronunciations can become mutually unintelligible. Mandarin
has four tones, but Cantonese has six, so it's much
more difficult at least wow for people to like honestly,
(42:40):
for people our age who have never tried to learn Cantonese,
it would be almost impossible. So it's it's tough, and
it does make a difference to figure out which language
this got mistranslated into. Other versions of the story. Sometimes
say the mistranslation didn't occur in China at all, that
it was in Thailand or Germany.
Speaker 2 (43:01):
But in anyway, how do we not have better records
of this?
Speaker 3 (43:04):
Though you'd think that like historians of marketing would have,
you know, got the clippings, you know what I mean,
there would be artifacts out there that could prove this
from different campaigns.
Speaker 1 (43:15):
I'm gonna say it's because PEPSI is not super proud
of it.
Speaker 3 (43:19):
Yeah, but we know, I mean, I guess this is
also probably pre Internet, so they probably were able to,
you know, do the best they could to pull any
examples of that stuff from the public record. But in
any case, you will hear the mistranslation phrase in one
of a handful of different ways, including come alive and
out of the grave with PEPSI works for Halloween maybe,
(43:41):
but not the rest of the year. And again with
the cultural stuff. This is wild, but it's so interesting
too because the cultural argument really is most profound, I
think with China because of that, you know, very important
spiritual connection to ancestors. Another one was PEPSI will bring
your ancestors back from the dead, right, and then bring
(44:01):
dead ancestors back from heaven.
Speaker 2 (44:03):
That sounds wow, that's a that's a okay, that's I'll
give it that.
Speaker 3 (44:08):
Yeah, I mean, it's are we talking are they zombies
now or are they like back like they were cemetery situation.
Speaker 2 (44:14):
What happens when you run out of pepsi? Right? They
don't do they turn?
Speaker 1 (44:19):
So with all these do they do they crave pepsi
right when they they've risen in the night for the
pepsi cola. With all the caveats were giving you, it
might sound like we're giving we're spinning a tall tale,
ridiculous historians. Uh, maybe a bit of bait and switch. However,
we have to have those caveats because this is still
(44:42):
probably I'm going to say probably true to some degree.
Pepsi has never once come out and denied that this occurred.
They have never made an official statement of any kind
about this, despite it being one of the most legendary
stories in all of Western marketing lore. And it makes
you think, you know, we're left with two conclusions. Maybe
(45:02):
pepsi did have a sort of stumble since it was
pretty widely reported by multiple otherwise solid sources. Or maybe
pepsi really brought people back from the dead and it
got covered up. You know, it's one of those two.
There is no in between.
Speaker 3 (45:16):
I mean, look, I might rethink my position on pepsi
if in fact did bring back you know, loved ones
from the dead.
Speaker 2 (45:23):
Yeah, I don't, but again, I need to know the rules.
Speaker 3 (45:25):
Isn't a monkey's pod type situation, you know, I just
there's a lot of questions, a lot of questions.
Speaker 1 (45:30):
A temporary thing, is it long lasting? Is there a
way to send people back again?
Speaker 2 (45:36):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (45:36):
We've got a lot of questions. We're looking for the
answers as we speak. Currently on a side note, maybe
this is where we end today. Currently on a side note.
Pepsi's name in Chinese characters translates to one hundred ways
to good luck, and Koch's name, Coca Cola's name translates
to quote to allow the mouth to be able to rejoice.
Speaker 2 (46:00):
Feel like, that's terrible, That is weird.
Speaker 3 (46:03):
There's a brand of some kind. It's candy or something.
I'm a picture.
Speaker 2 (46:08):
You know what it is.
Speaker 3 (46:08):
It's Twizzlers. Do you remember what Twizzler's slogan was, You
guys makes mouths happy. Oh, that's right, yeah, makes mouths happy.
Speaker 2 (46:19):
I'm guy.
Speaker 3 (46:20):
And they don't say mouths when they do it, they
speak it out loud and they say makes mouths happy.
And in the in the commercials in the nineties like
Pee Wee's playhouse style kind of weird clamation of giant
lips and red vine pulsating twizzlers going in and.
Speaker 2 (46:36):
Out of the mouths.
Speaker 3 (46:37):
It's a very very macabre, like those MTV bumpers from
those days, you know, and really weird stuff there was.
Speaker 1 (46:43):
There's an entire history we could do of weird advertising
slogans that aren't even mistranslations, the ones that have aged
so poorly that if you look at them now you
would assume they were mistranslations. But this also perhaps is
a continuing series, because there are many other other strange mistranslations,
(47:04):
some of which almost led to nuclear war, like we
will bury you slapping the shoe on the counter for
any history, and then some that are some that are
more comical, of course, like you can some Chinese shopkeepers
the way they wrote coca cola translates into bite the
wax tadpole.
Speaker 2 (47:25):
Oh yeah, if you heard that way, that for me, though,
the wet sprocket.
Speaker 1 (47:29):
That's that's specific enough for me that if I if
I was in a different country, I saw a drink
that was advertising itself as bite the wax tadpole, I'd
buy one. I would buy one and lose under like
two dollars.
Speaker 2 (47:42):
I would definitely try, no question.
Speaker 3 (47:44):
It also sounds like a really kind of fun expression
for like dying, you know, bite the wax tadpole.
Speaker 1 (47:51):
Straight out of a Jimmy Carter speech. There we go,
h yeah, tune in. Maybe we'll have an upcoming episode
on further mistranslations. Oh and well meaning astronomer who accidentally
started all the Mars conspiracies, etca, et cetera audible mention
to various unfortunate names of automobiles with this, thank you
(48:11):
very much to our super producer, mister Max Williams. Thank you,
of course to Jimmy Carter. And in defense of the translator,
we mentioned Seymour again, he's not incompetent, like we said,
it's just not everybody always has a great day.
Speaker 2 (48:27):
Yeah, no, it's true. Huge thanks to Alex Williams.
Speaker 3 (48:30):
Composed to our theme, Christophraciotis needs, Jeff Coates here in
spirit A J. Jacobs the Puzzler, Jonathan Strickland the quizt
and you Ben, my linguistic writer Die and also with
Jo We'll see next Niebooks. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
(48:54):
visit the iHeartRadio app Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History News
Hosts And Creators
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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