English as She is Spoke

[trochee]

The commander Forbin of janson, being at a repast with a celebrated Boileau, had undertaken to pun him upon her name:--"What name," told him, "carry you thither? Boileau: I would wish better to call me Drink wine." The poet was answered him in the same tune:--"And you, sir, what name have you choice? Janson: I should prefer to be named John-Meal. The meal don't is valuable better than the furfur?"

Didn't make sense? Well, don't worry. This is where it came from: an 1883 traveler's guide to English, written by two Portuguese translators who didn't speak English and apparently had only a Portuguese-French and a French-English translation dictionary to work with.

The Village Voice has an old review of this book. I find it absolutely hilarious. The funniest part, to me, is that state-of-the-art machine translation does little better!