Lost In Google Translation: Sir Elton Is Dead! Long Live Sir Elton!

When the team at Grapevine Towers read on mbl.is that Sir Elton John had died, the well-lubricated VineMachine sprang into an immediate response. Just imagine the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, but wearing plastic viking helmets.

Photo mbl.is/AFP

Before you could say “Nikita,” news editor Andie had turned out an eloquent obituary for Pinner’s premier piano-man, Valur had donned his black suit (with Pollý in matching harness) ready to cast the devastating news to the world, and culture editor Hannah Jane had organised a gala extravaganza tribute performance of ‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road’—all four sides of the vinyl, starring herself—with tickets already on sale. That girl doesn’t hang about.

When we realised that this news was simply a GoogleGaffe™—yet another mistranslation by the world’s favourite language-mangling tech-giant—Team ‘Vine found themselves all adrenalined-up with nowhere to go. So following a brisk jog around the block to shake it off, the rest of the day was spent blasting “Candle In The Wind” on the office stereo and wallowing in the relief that Sir Elton’s life hadn’t sputtered out like… erm… well, like a candle in the wind.

What had actually happened to Elton was that he had lost weight; nothing more dramatic than that. However the expression “Elton John hefur lést” could be taken to mean both “Elton John has lost weight” and “Elton John has died”—at least to the linguistically naïve—and that includes the GoogleBot™. So on this occasion we’re going to cut it some slack. It’s trying hard, after all.

Anyway, thankfully the Rocket Man is still on earth, he’s just hefur lést (or a little less hefty). He’s Still Standing. Yeah Yeah Yeah!

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The post Lost In Google Translation: Sir Elton Is Dead! Long Live Sir Elton! appeared first on The Reykjavik Grapevine.