The Public Domain Review

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English As She Is Spoke (1884)

Monday 15 August 2011 at 16:50


English As She is Spoke, by Pedro Carolino; 1884; Appleton, New York

The book was intended as a Portuguese-English conversational guide or phrase book, but is regarded as a classic source of unintentional humour, as the given English translations are generally completely incoherent. Carolino added Fonseca’s name to the book without the latter knowing about it. Fonseca had written a successful Portuguese-French phrase book, which Carolino adapted.

Mark Twain: “Nobody can add to the absurdity of this book, nobody can imitate it successfully, nobody can hope to produce its fellow; it is perfect.”

Open Library link



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Source: http://publicdomainreview.org/2011/08/15/english-as-she-is-spoke-1884/