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History Is Absolutely Riddled With Famous Mistranslations · Ridiculous History

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Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
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Speaker 1: the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much
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Speaker 1: for tuning in in whatever language you wish. We also
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Speaker 1: are obviously recording this in English with the help of
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Speaker 1: our super producer, mister Max Williams.
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Speaker 2: Ty Hoe on Young Lussio.
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Speaker 1: Yes, Yes, funny, funny story, Noel, I think you may
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Speaker 1: have heard this one the first time I was in Germany.
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Speaker 1: I was there for several weeks and I this was
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Speaker 1: pre uh translation apps, pre cell phone, and I have
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Speaker 1: practiced for some time a phrase that was very proud of,
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Speaker 1: and a phrase was this. When people came up to
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Speaker 1: me and inevitably spoke German, I would say, I would
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Speaker 1: try my best to keep up. Obviously I couldn't. And
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Speaker 1: then when I got when the water got too deep
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Speaker 1: for me linguistically, I would hold up a hand and
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Speaker 1: I would say, I'm sorry, my German is not good enough.
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Speaker 1: Can we continue this conversation in English?
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Speaker 2: Ooh, that's a power but not a power move, a
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Speaker 2: super move.
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Speaker 3: It's just a really very utilitarian phrase because it's respecting
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Speaker 3: their language and sort of putting you at the disadvantage
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Speaker 3: where it's like, listen, I gave it my all. You
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Speaker 3: are my intellectual superior, and I would really appreciate it
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Speaker 3: if you would talk to me like a child. So
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Speaker 3: I tried this, and maybe linguistic superior, but you have
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Speaker 3: to try, you know what I mean. Yeah, I'm just
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Speaker 3: I'm overstating the case. But it is very self deprecating
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Speaker 3: in a positive way, which I think would put them
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Speaker 3: in your corner.
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Speaker 1: Thanks, man, one would hope. But for again, for quite
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Speaker 1: some time, I would be in these conversations, I would
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Speaker 1: stop and say, I'm sorry, my English or my German
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Speaker 1: is not good enough. Could we continue in English? And
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Speaker 1: every single time I said this, the person I was
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Speaker 1: speaking to would kind of get a chill over them.
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Speaker 1: There would be some ice in the room, and then
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Speaker 1: they would usually say something like because Germans all speak excellent.
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Speaker 2: English these days.
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Speaker 1: Sure They would usually say something like, very well, I
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Speaker 1: was asking if you needed blah blah blah, or I
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Speaker 1: was asking the way to the you know.
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Speaker 2: The aldi.
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Speaker 1: And then at the very end of this trip, I'm
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Speaker 1: walking into the hostel and I bumped shoulders accidentally with
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Speaker 1: somebody walking out, and then she says this thing, and
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Speaker 1: I say I'm sorry, my German's not good enough? Can
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Speaker 1: we continue in English? And then she says, in a
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Speaker 1: perfect California accent. By the way, she says, you're an asshole.
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Speaker 1: And then the lady at the counter starts laughing and
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Speaker 1: she says, do you know what you've been saying? I said,
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Speaker 1: oh no, here's what I've been saying. I've been saying
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Speaker 1: to native German speakers, I'm sorry your German is not
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Speaker 1: good enough? Can we continue this conversation in English? And
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Speaker 1: I'm saying it with the worst American accent. Oh gosh, apologies,
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Speaker 1: good people of Berlin.
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Speaker 2: That is perfect.
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Speaker 3: That is a perfect example of delete into what we're
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Speaker 3: talking about today. But Ben in theory, like I said,
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Speaker 3: I mean, I was surprised when you said there was
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Speaker 3: this icy reactions. I was like, no, that's a pretty thoughtful,
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Speaker 3: respectful little thing to say, and if you had translated
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Speaker 3: it correctly, it would have been a super move. But
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Speaker 3: instead it sunk your linguistic battleship.
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Speaker 1: Yes, with apologies to all the good people of Berlin
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Speaker 1: and the Berlin metro area or I guess Frankfurt as well.
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Speaker 1: You are no brown. I am Ben Bullet. This is
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Speaker 1: ridiculous history.
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Speaker 2: True, it is that very thing, and that just really quickly.
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Speaker 3: While we're on the topic of Berlin in funny translations,
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Speaker 3: when I was traveling in Berlin with my buddy Frank,
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Speaker 3: friend of the show, he he had done his duo
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Speaker 3: lingo best, you know, to get some phrases up for
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Speaker 3: the trip. And the thing that I'll always remember is
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Speaker 3: when he was trying to order some pastries at like
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Speaker 3: a train station and he kind of got flummixed and
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Speaker 3: couldn't think of the word. He just said it in English,
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Speaker 3: but in a really thick German accent, and it was
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Speaker 3: not like intentional. It was clearly like his brain wiring
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Speaker 3: just kind of like fritzed out.
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Speaker 2: And that was what he did in the panic of
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Speaker 2: the moment.
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Speaker 3: Is you know, ordering in English dis stressful sometimes, let
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Speaker 3: alone trying to do it in a foreign language.
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Speaker 2: But I will rib him about that until the day
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Speaker 2: we die.
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Speaker 1: What did the what did the pastry seller say?
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Speaker 2: How did they I.
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Speaker 3: Don't think they even clocked it. I don't think it
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Speaker 3: was an issue, but I just it was.
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Speaker 2: I just was.
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Speaker 3: We were also a little punchy, you know, from time
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Speaker 3: differences and things like that, so it was kind of
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Speaker 3: a little bit dreamles, but that was just one of
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Speaker 3: the funniest things.
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Speaker 2: That's amazing.
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Speaker 1: And you know, when you travel or whenever, when you travel,
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Speaker 1: whether across physical distance or across a linguistic gap, these
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Speaker 1: kinds of foibles and little hiccups are not uncommon. It
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Speaker 1: was weird because one thing that expired our exploration today,
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Speaker 1: our good buddy Josh Clark, had reached out in advance
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Speaker 1: of an episode they did on Esperanto, which is a constructed,
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Speaker 1: nifty language, chock full of puns, all kinds of cool stuff,
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Speaker 1: And we started thinking about how translation works. You know,
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Speaker 1: are there really some things that you can say in
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Speaker 1: one language but not in another? How often do even
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Speaker 1: the world's smartest, sharpest people get it wrong. This led
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Speaker 1: to what, honestly Noel might end up being a continuing series,
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Speaker 1: the history of famous mistranslations. I was thinking, I don't
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Speaker 1: know if you ever heard this would but maybe we
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Speaker 1: start off.
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Speaker 2: With what I was not familiar with.
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Speaker 1: Jimmy Carter one time said that he wanted to leave
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Speaker 1: the US forever and have sex with everyone in Poland.
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Speaker 3: Well, and this is funny because Jimmy Carter, you know,
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Speaker 3: famous sweetheart. So you know, I'm sure there was no
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Speaker 3: harm intended, but yeah, I mean, especially when you're like
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Speaker 3: a traveling dignitary, these kinds of things can actually have
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Speaker 3: real world consequences in terms of like relationships between countries
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Speaker 3: or god forbid, even you know, escalation of conflict.
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Speaker 2: Right.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, So let's travel back. It's December twenty ninth, nineteen
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Speaker 1: seventy seven. Jimmy Carter is kicking off his really like
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Speaker 1: his first field trip as president, and he's going on
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Speaker 1: a six country tour and the first stop is.
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Speaker 2: Poland six country too, is that?
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Speaker 3: I guess it's only a whistle stur if it's in
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Speaker 3: America and by train, right, but it is sort of
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Speaker 3: like a foreign version of that, you know, where he's
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Speaker 3: not kind of trying to show face, you know, say hey,
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Speaker 3: I'm the new guy, check out my chops and let's
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Speaker 3: make friends.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, he's got a lot to prove to the world
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Speaker 1: and domestically to the United States, and as we know
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Speaker 1: with the history of the Carter administration, he had a
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Speaker 1: lot of problems proving himself domestically in policy.
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Speaker 2: It was a tough time.
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Speaker 1: But you know what, when you're the US president and
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Speaker 1: you land in a country. It's not the way that
7:36
Speaker 1: the MAXs and the Knowles and the bends of the
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Speaker 1: world land. You don't have to stand in line, right,
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Speaker 1: you don't really have to go through customs. You get
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Speaker 1: off and you meet you get off the plane, you
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Speaker 1: meet a ton of dignitaries, and there's like a crowd
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Speaker 1: of people who are either angry at you or really
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Speaker 1: happy to see you. Either way, they want something. And
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Speaker 1: so Jimmy gets off the plague and he's got this
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Speaker 1: big speech he's going to do for Polish politicians and
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Speaker 1: activists and protesters. He gets welcomed by the leader of
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Speaker 1: Poland's Communist Party, Edward Garrick, and then five hundred other
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Speaker 1: people who are just hanging out and they've been waiting
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Speaker 1: all night in the bitter cold, in the snow, just
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Speaker 1: to see him. So he has to make this a
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Speaker 1: ridal a glimpse, right, right, So he has to make
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Speaker 1: his arrival worth the wait.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, he does, and he did just that, perhaps not
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Speaker 3: in the way that he was intending or in a
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Speaker 3: way that would be pleasing to the nation of Poland.
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Speaker 3: So before we get into where this thing went horribly horribly,
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Speaker 3: a arrived let's give a little bit of context. It
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Speaker 3: was the late seventies, which is an extremely sensitive period
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Speaker 3: to your point earlier Ben for this nation Poland. Carter
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Speaker 3: and his team were there to talk business in terms
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Speaker 3: of like you know, business commerce between Poland and the
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Speaker 3: United States. Poland wanted more export markets in the US
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Speaker 3: and they were asking for around two hundred million dollars
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Speaker 3: worth of agricultural export credits.
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Speaker 2: And we don't need to get too in the weeds
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Speaker 2: about that.
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Speaker 3: I don't think I fully understand what export credits means.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree, we don't need to get too into
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Speaker 1: the weeds because we might ourselves mistranslate what that means.
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Speaker 1: But from the base level understanding, it means that the
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Speaker 1: US was being asked to degree yeah, yeah, to not
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Speaker 1: have taxes or higher you know duty's and tariffs and
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Speaker 1: stuff like that.
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Speaker 2: I see.
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Speaker 3: But it also sort of sets up a tone where
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Speaker 3: it's like, this is how this is the kind of
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Speaker 3: business we're going to be doing.
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Speaker 4: And I know, I think maybe what it also do
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Speaker 4: is it's like we're going to do at least this much,
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Speaker 4: So it gives that's what I mean.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it sort of sets the tone of
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Speaker 3: the business transaction, right.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, and on the other side of the conversation, and
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Speaker 1: you know, kind of the other side of the iron
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Speaker 1: curtain at this point, because it's Jimmy's first field trip
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Speaker 1: as the president, he again has a lot to prove.
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Speaker 1: And his head foreign policy advisor at the time is
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Speaker 1: a guy. Uh we all love this name, Zebec new
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Speaker 1: Brznetski un he himself.
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Speaker 3: First, I was having a hard time with the big
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Speaker 3: new Okay, yeah, well done.
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Speaker 1: He's he's He is also a Polish origin.
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Speaker 4: Also, I gotta jump in here. The last name has
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Speaker 4: a Z, then an E, then another z.
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Speaker 1: It's polish Man. Polish is a famously difficult language for
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Speaker 1: like people growing up in Poland. It's a difficult language.
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Speaker 1: Because his foreign policy advisor is himself a Polish origin.
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Speaker 1: They have kept a close eye on the country and
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Speaker 1: they're seeing the economy stalling, They're seeing growing economic instability,
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Speaker 1: and the communist Polish public is increasingly asking, what if
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Speaker 1: our current status quo is the wrong status quo? What
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Speaker 1: if there's a better answer.
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Speaker 2: So this is the.
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Speaker 1: Perfect time for a pro democracy force like the US
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Speaker 1: president to come through and you know, lay down some charms,
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Speaker 1: spit some game.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, and he spits said game with the help of
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Speaker 3: a State Department provided translator by the name of Stephen Seymour,
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Speaker 3: which is very vanilla sounding name. A thirty one year
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Speaker 3: old fellow, and you know, not a bad dude by nature.
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Speaker 2: But let's just say maybe he lacked a little bit
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Speaker 2: of experience. He had the bona fides though, right, he
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Speaker 2: was a polyglot.
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Speaker 3: Most Americans are not able to say that, you know,
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Speaker 3: I could barely speak English, you know, Felia man, he
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Speaker 3: always very impressive when you go abroad and you realize
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Speaker 3: how it is just standard for folks to know multiple languages.
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Speaker 3: I feel like that is a kind of brain capacity
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Speaker 3: that I no longer possess. But again, he wasn't incompetence.
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Speaker 3: He was a great translator of Polish and Russian and
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Speaker 3: French texts into English. And he had a real solid
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Speaker 3: reputation for translating poetry. And I wanted to bring this
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Speaker 3: up too earlier, Ben, because translating conversations versus translating like literature, right,
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Speaker 3: or poetry or text the Bible even you know, there's
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Speaker 3: so many things in the kind of the umami that
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Speaker 3: you give the translation in order to make the feeling
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Speaker 3: of it translate to the new language, because you know,
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Speaker 3: works of art and literature, they are meant to be
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Speaker 3: felt as much as they are meant to be read
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Speaker 3: and interpreted. So it's like he was maybe working with
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Speaker 3: a little bit more nuanced than maybe was required for
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Speaker 3: this particular gig.
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Speaker 2: I don't know, what do you think?
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Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, you're absolutely right about that art of translation,
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Speaker 1: you know, and it is incredibly differentfficult to convey tone
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Speaker 1: and context or you know, the vibe for lack of
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Speaker 1: a better word, in conversation. If you're just translating a
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Speaker 1: scientific text, then the task is a little bit easier.
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Speaker 1: But this, dude is it's kind of like being asked
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Speaker 1: to do freestyle poetry from one language to the next
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Speaker 1: on the fly. And Polish was his fourth language. He
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Speaker 1: was Russian born, So translating from English to Polish is
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Speaker 1: like an extra plot twist for this got it an
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Speaker 1: extra permutation.
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Speaker 3: Just to go back to our conversation with aj, you
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Speaker 3: know about like the kind of levels of cipher's. You know,
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Speaker 3: you start to get kind of cipher's within cipher's and
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Speaker 3: that can really affect the complexity of the operation.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, and as a result. In his initial speech, and
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Speaker 1: again this is in front of more than five hundred people,
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Speaker 1: including the leader of the country, he makes.
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Speaker 2: Three big errors.
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Speaker 1: The first one is he means to say, I'm very
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Speaker 1: glad to be in Poland. The way Seymour translates this,
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Speaker 1: it sounds like he is telling the crowd he has
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Speaker 1: abandoned the US forever and he's going to live in
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Speaker 1: Poland from now on.
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Speaker 2: That's like his opening line.
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Speaker 3: And bless his heart. We got to use that because
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Speaker 3: that's something that he would have said. Yeah, can you
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Speaker 3: imagine him saying all this stuff in Polish? Given it
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Speaker 3: his Southern best, you know what I mean. I mean,
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Speaker 3: it's probably comical. If there's tape of it that exists,
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Speaker 3: I would love to hear him, because you know, he's
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Speaker 3: doing it with an open heart and trying his best
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Speaker 3: to be a man of the people that he's communicating with.
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Speaker 3: But I'm sure it was cringe, you know, listening to
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Speaker 3: Southern bell like Jimmy Carter trying to muddle his way
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Speaker 3: through Polish.
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Speaker 1: So what's happening is Jimmy Carter is saying his prepared
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Speaker 1: English speech and then it's kind of like when you
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Speaker 1: have a ASL interpreter who's standing. Oh so he was,
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Speaker 1: it's actually speaking Polish. Yeah, I don't think so.
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Speaker 3: Okay, sorry, my fantasy has been no, no, what's cool.
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Speaker 3: I just my fantasy has been shattered. It's fine.
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Speaker 1: It would it would be amazing though, and it would
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Speaker 1: have also been a tremendous flex where he is speaking.
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Speaker 3: I guess that's not really done, you know, in terms
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Speaker 3: of like a foreign dignitary trying to speak the language.
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Speaker 3: But you do hear things like ben I and berlin a,
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Speaker 3: you know, but that's just sort of like that's a
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Speaker 3: big deal for that. I think they put a lot
15:27
Speaker 3: of weight into them attempting to actually speak the language,
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Speaker 3: and usually those things get pull quoted quite frequently.
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Speaker 2: Yeah.
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Speaker 1: And I think one of the issues that we see
15:37
Speaker 1: even now with this kind of interaction is geopolitical. Like,
15:41
Speaker 1: for instance, if there were a US president that speaks
15:45
Speaker 1: fluent Russian in public conversation regarding Russia or to the
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Speaker 1: Russian people, they're probably still going to speak in English,
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Speaker 1: like Vladimir Putin knows English, but it's seen as sort
15:59
Speaker 1: of a like rolling over and showing the belly to
16:03
Speaker 1: not speaking your own language, which I think is a
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Speaker 1: little bit cold warish, but sure, but that's what he's doing.
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Speaker 1: So second one, this is a weird one. Carter is
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Speaker 1: giving a kind of in depth shout out to the
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Speaker 1: Polish Constitution from seventeen ninety one, and in his speech
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Speaker 1: he says this constitution is one of the greatest monuments
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Speaker 1: to human rights in the entirety of the seventeen hundreds.
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Speaker 1: But the way Seymour translates it, it comes off like
16:35
Speaker 1: a really sarcastic sounding roast, like something from the Colbert Report,
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Speaker 1: sort of like.
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Speaker 3: One of the three greatest monuments of human rights of
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Speaker 3: the entire.
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Speaker 2: Exactly.
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Speaker 1: And it's all in the it's all in the way
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Speaker 1: they order it, because he lists this one thing as greatest,
16:54
Speaker 1: and he lists this second thing, and then he says,
16:56
Speaker 1: and you know, third.
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Speaker 2: Place, coming in third, solid third, you know.
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Speaker 1: So Carter, by the way that you're founding document exactly, Yeah,
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Speaker 1: welcome to your bronze medal as a country. And Carter
17:10
Speaker 1: still doesn't know anything's wrong. He's probably he's probably thinking, well,
17:17
Speaker 1: maybe they just don't react the same way American crowds do.
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Speaker 3: Which they maybe don't, you know, I mean, very likely
17:27
Speaker 3: there would think about all the things that would have
17:29
Speaker 3: been in play, like the decorum, or maybe there would
17:31
Speaker 3: be a little confusion not necessarily gonna erupt into outright aggression.
17:36
Speaker 3: So it would be kind of confusing being up there
17:38
Speaker 3: and then not really knowing because you're already coming into
17:41
Speaker 3: a situation where you're not familiar with all of the
17:43
Speaker 3: cultural nuances. And then you're starting to see some head
17:46
Speaker 3: scratching and you're like, oh, okay, well maybe I'm killing it.
17:49
Speaker 2: Who am I to say, let's just sally for it.
17:51
Speaker 1: Maybe they just don't cheer here. Maybe that's an American.
17:55
Speaker 5: They're very reserved Polish, right. Sure, and then so he
18:00
Speaker 5: doesn't know anything's going wrong. Sure, he's a very smart guy,
18:03
Speaker 5: So surely he's getting a weird vibe. And he says,
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Speaker 5: I would like to learn more about the desires of
18:09
Speaker 5: the Polish people.
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Speaker 2: Naughty Jimmy Cotty, I love it. Well, what he means
18:20
Speaker 2: there is that he, therefore America.
18:23
Speaker 1: Wants to know what the public dreams about when it
18:26
Speaker 1: comes to early future of their country.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, how is it translated? Well, I don't know know.
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Speaker 3: I mean, maybe it's just the way you said it been,
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Speaker 3: But I get The word desire is a sticky wicket,
18:37
Speaker 3: my friends, you know, because it's like it could be
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Speaker 3: used formerly like I desire to make a pact of peace,
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Speaker 3: you know, with this nation. But also if you don't
18:48
Speaker 3: continue the formality on the back end and you kind
18:50
Speaker 3: of mix it up a little bit, it can sound
18:52
Speaker 3: real horny, you know, by accident. I think that's why
18:55
Speaker 3: I still don't like the It's my Pleasure at Chick
18:58
Speaker 3: fil A weird me out.
19:00
Speaker 2: It just sounds a little horny.
19:01
Speaker 3: I don't know why, And especially when paired with the
19:03
Speaker 3: kind of puritanical roots of that company, it just sounds
19:06
Speaker 3: like repressed horny.
19:08
Speaker 2: I don't know.
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Speaker 1: Also how that review is just too much.
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Speaker 2: You know what, very weird. It's very like Robot. It's
19:15
Speaker 2: like eight thirty in the morning.
19:16
Speaker 1: Also your fifteen Courtney, just give me the weird chicken biscuit.
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Speaker 3: I think I basically picked up on the same nuances
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Speaker 3: that the Polish were picking up because more or less
19:26
Speaker 3: out of like you know, he they interpreted what he
19:29
Speaker 3: said as like I want to know you all.
19:32
Speaker 1: Sexually exactly exactly. It came to Medley in quiet storm. Yeah,
19:39
Speaker 1: you're on the money, though it translated with you're all
19:42
Speaker 1: the money with both Chick fil A and this by
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Speaker 1: the way, it translated in a way that meant to
19:47
Speaker 1: the Polish people in the audience, I specifically meet Jimmy Carter.
19:51
Speaker 1: Want to have sex with all of.
19:53
Speaker 3: You, all of all at the same time.
20:03
Speaker 2: We could we can take and do a numbers system
20:05
Speaker 2: that one, you know, one by one everybody. Logistics aren't
20:09
Speaker 2: What's what's concerning me right now? I just want it?
20:12
Speaker 2: Here's my question?
20:13
Speaker 4: Was Roslin there also?
20:14
Speaker 2: I think she was can get in the mix it.
20:18
Speaker 2: We talked on the plane, We preyed on it. She's schools.
20:21
Speaker 2: She likes your vibe too. We're opening up our relationships
20:25
Speaker 2: your entire country because what's more American than that, you know? Uh,
20:30
Speaker 2: it's bigger than all of us.
20:31
Speaker 1: Yes, so uh this thing was actually scandalous enough that
20:35
Speaker 1: the local newspapers decided to censor themselves. So the many
20:39
Speaker 1: reporters weren't there. He didn't he didn't know any of this,
20:42
Speaker 1: none the wiser. Yeah, exactly. So they toned the statement
20:46
Speaker 1: down when they report on this, and what they say
20:50
Speaker 1: instead of I want to have sex with you is uh,
20:53
Speaker 1: I want to have carnal knowledge of the Polish, which
20:55
Speaker 1: is still not it's not improvement cardinal. It's just I
21:02
Speaker 1: don't know what it is about that word cardinal. Just
21:04
Speaker 1: it's because also the idea of consumption of EAI.
21:08
Speaker 2: I'm gonna say, it's like I want to devour you,
21:10
Speaker 2: I want to devour your.
21:11
Speaker 4: Flesh makes me just think of popcorn. I mean, I
21:13
Speaker 4: think that what makes this so terrible is is Jimmy Carter.
21:16
Speaker 4: We're talking about you. It's like sweetheart, Yeah, this wholesome sweetheart.
21:20
Speaker 4: Like I think, Ben, you're the one who told me
21:22
Speaker 4: this lie. But it's like Jimmy Carter might not been
21:25
Speaker 4: the best president, but he might have been the best
21:26
Speaker 4: person who was president.
21:28
Speaker 2: Oh continues, I mean he's not did he just die? No,
21:32
Speaker 2: Roslyn passed away.
21:33
Speaker 3: I'm sorry, he's he's I'm not. He's so old and
21:37
Speaker 3: continues to do amazing work, you know, with his foundations,
21:41
Speaker 3: and it's just a regularly I think I think he
21:43
Speaker 3: like insists on his presidential kind of detail and like
21:47
Speaker 3: you know, property and supplements that you get to be
21:50
Speaker 3: the bare bones minimum because he doesn't want anyone to
21:53
Speaker 3: have to pay for his life. And and he does
21:55
Speaker 3: all this habitat for humanity stuff like super legitimately awesome
21:58
Speaker 3: guy continuously so you know, throughout his career. Again, maybe
22:01
Speaker 3: not the best president. This diplomacy stuff is obviously really tricky,
22:05
Speaker 3: but what a guy. You know, he will go down
22:07
Speaker 3: in history as one of the great philanthropists I think
22:09
Speaker 3: of of our time.
22:11
Speaker 1: Well said, he's also he's also he is in hospice
22:15
Speaker 1: as we record now, and.
22:17
Speaker 2: I knew he wasn't. Well, that's that was triggering for many.
22:22
Speaker 1: A while, right by some time now, Yeah, for many years,
22:25
Speaker 1: he for many years he would.
22:27
Speaker 2: But he makes every now and again not but he did.
22:31
Speaker 3: I mean, but within the last handful of years he
22:34
Speaker 3: would show up to big, big deal things. But yeah, anyway,
22:37
Speaker 3: we interviewed him at the Carter Center a few years
22:42
Speaker 3: back for how stuff works in the house stuff works
22:44
Speaker 3: days and I think our pal Matt Frederick has I
22:49
Speaker 3: think it was Matt, one one of our longtime friends
22:52
Speaker 3: has Uh has a great story about thinking, holy crap,
22:56
Speaker 3: I have to put a lava leer mike on Jimmy Carter.
23:00
Speaker 3: For any non audio nerds, lava lier mic is the
23:02
Speaker 3: little thing you have to clip and drop down someone's shirt. Yeah,
23:06
Speaker 3: it requires getting a little cardinal so they've got some
23:10
Speaker 3: cardinal knowledge of Jimmy Carter.
23:12
Speaker 1: So so this is crazy because Jimmy doesn't know, the
23:17
Speaker 1: Americans on the team don't know, and the transfer.
23:20
Speaker 3: Translators are moving on to another gig or at least
23:23
Speaker 3: he's like got his hands full just doing the day
23:25
Speaker 3: to day of translating throughout these meetings. So he's not
23:29
Speaker 3: even thinking twice about what's just transpired in this speech, right, he.
23:33
Speaker 1: Doesn't know until two days later when a local journalist
23:36
Speaker 1: finally ask him what's going on. It's sort of like,
23:40
Speaker 1: have you ever had a great day or a great
23:43
Speaker 1: meeting and then you realize that your fly has been
23:46
Speaker 1: down the whole time. It's kind of like that.
23:48
Speaker 3: Yeah, it may be even worse, because this is just
23:51
Speaker 3: like the biggest whoops, Like you thought you killed it,
23:54
Speaker 3: You thought everything was good, you did your job well,
23:57
Speaker 3: and then it turns out way no, you had one
24:00
Speaker 3: job and you did it not well at all, And
24:03
Speaker 3: now you've got to deal with the backlash and you're
24:05
Speaker 3: probably gonna get fired, which I believe did quietly happen.
24:10
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is this is crazy.
24:13
Speaker 1: So he he's been busting his humps, Like you said,
24:17
Speaker 1: our translairacymore for the preceding forty eight hours handling all
24:22
Speaker 1: this other stuff as an interpreter. And then there's a
24:25
Speaker 1: final formal banquet and he has removed from that banquet.
24:30
Speaker 1: It's not an improvement, scored it out. Yeah, their last
24:33
Speaker 1: minute escort or their last minute interpreter rather couldn't do
24:38
Speaker 1: his job because Jimmy Carter has somewhattle strong southern axioms.
24:44
Speaker 3: A bit of a drawl bit, if you will. He's
24:48
Speaker 3: got a god molding a slip of molasses in there, and.
24:52
Speaker 2: It really likes to roll around inside.
24:53
Speaker 3: The word just make a meal of it, you know,
24:56
Speaker 3: right right, never metal phrase that didn't need some shoeing,
25:00
Speaker 3: and the.
25:03
Speaker 2: That's so dumb, No, keep it back.
25:05
Speaker 1: And so this interpreter was listening to this and the
25:09
Speaker 1: poor guys thinking is this even English? And so he
25:14
Speaker 1: literally just sits there until the interpreter from the Polish government,
25:18
Speaker 1: presumably sighing theatrically, says, well, the president you see needs
25:25
Speaker 1: to follow it.
25:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, there were some words spoken.
25:30
Speaker 3: I can't speak to the quality of them, but I
25:33
Speaker 3: would love to hear a translation attempt at least exactly.
25:37
Speaker 1: So, like you said, this could have been a huge snaffoo,
25:41
Speaker 1: a big scandal, But luckily it didn't scuttle US Polish relations.
25:45
Speaker 1: When Carter returned to the US, they continued to work
25:48
Speaker 1: with this country until the end of communism. And you know,
25:53
Speaker 1: we can't say for sure whether he managed to bang
25:56
Speaker 1: out the entire nation of communist Poland one at a
26:04
Speaker 1: time or in a group. We do know, like you said,
26:07
Speaker 1: that he was happily married and monogamous for the entirety
26:10
Speaker 1: of his adult life, So it seems unlikely that he
26:14
Speaker 1: did this, just think of the logistics. And it also
26:17
Speaker 1: seems unlikely that he desired to in the first place.
26:21
Speaker 3: Oh yes, it would have been his pleasure to do so.
26:27
Speaker 2: Jimmy Carter, What a guy.
26:36
Speaker 1: And we're back Pepsi. Oh, pepsi. You guys like pepsi
26:39
Speaker 1: back when you know soda drinking?
26:41
Speaker 2: I don't like. I don't. I don't like pepsi. Oh no, no,
26:43
Speaker 2: good pepsi pop is good.
26:45
Speaker 4: I can't even fake it.
26:48
Speaker 3: No, dude, it's just I mean, I like some pepsi products,
26:50
Speaker 3: but pepsi is an inferior cola. I'm sorry it has
26:54
Speaker 3: got nothing to do with my Georgia roots. You know,
26:56
Speaker 3: I have no skin in the game politically or terms
27:00
Speaker 3: of loyal brand loyalty. Coca Cola Classic is just the
27:03
Speaker 3: superior cola. Pepsi tastes weird, I don't. I don't got
27:07
Speaker 3: a word in mouthfield. Yes it's weird.
27:09
Speaker 1: It stays with you a little more in the mouth itself,
27:14
Speaker 1: and it's I almost feel like.
27:16
Speaker 3: It's more sugar srapy. Yes, it's denser or something. It's weird, you.
27:20
Speaker 4: Guys known like' like furnette.
27:24
Speaker 3: I feel it's like a punishment. Drink it like coats
27:26
Speaker 3: the inside of your mouth. Whatever it's, it.
27:29
Speaker 4: Just lives there. It's it's now a roommate in your mouth.
27:32
Speaker 3: Brought to you by so uh yeah, but again Pepsi.
27:38
Speaker 3: You know the Pepsi brass is listening. Plenty of great
27:40
Speaker 3: pepsi products. Sure, I prefer to to coke products.
27:45
Speaker 1: Right, It's like how you don't you can love a
27:47
Speaker 1: band and not need to love every album, right.
27:50
Speaker 3: So please please give us money pepsi. I'm sorry, We'll
27:54
Speaker 3: take all of the buddy, we will. We will drink
27:56
Speaker 3: pepsi on the air. So before do you know we
28:00
Speaker 3: may have talked about this before, but there's this kind
28:02
Speaker 3: of there's a genre of music called Plunderphonics where it's
28:05
Speaker 3: like a lot of kind of satirical use of samples
28:08
Speaker 3: and you know, news clips in this audio collage. But
28:11
Speaker 3: there's this group called Negative Land I think we've talked about.
28:13
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, and they made a record called Dyspepsi that
28:17
Speaker 3: entirely uses like clips from Pepsi commercials and all kinds
28:21
Speaker 3: of weird stuff and it's like it is a rop
28:24
Speaker 3: I highly recommend you checking it out. It'll make you
28:27
Speaker 3: either crave pepsi or never want to drink a pepsi ever.
28:29
Speaker 1: Again, it's great for that to be in the conversation
28:32
Speaker 1: here because we're talking a lot about pepsi's at campaigns
28:36
Speaker 1: and they've had a struggle with that. You know, we
28:39
Speaker 1: are longtime residents of the Atlanta metro area, so we're
28:42
Speaker 1: clearly from the Coca Cola empire, but it's important to
28:47
Speaker 1: establish that personal taste aside, we bear no ill will
28:51
Speaker 1: towards the land of Pepsi. It is true, however, that
28:55
Speaker 1: Pepsi ran into some famous weird translation issues when they
28:59
Speaker 1: sought to expand internationally, like I didn't know this, but
29:03
Speaker 1: for many decades, like dating back to the late nineteen thirties,
29:07
Speaker 1: pepsi was considered the lower end, as you said, like
29:11
Speaker 1: the inferior soda. It's and it's because they tried to
29:16
Speaker 1: advertise themselves as a money saver. Their official slogan from
29:20
Speaker 1: thirty nine to nineteen fifty was twice as much for
29:24
Speaker 1: a nickel.
29:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, so it's like, are.
29:27
Speaker 1: We as good? Well, you get twice as much?
29:31
Speaker 3: Yeah, what's that checkers? You gotta eat? Yeah, and one
29:35
Speaker 3: hundred percent. Snopes says that the specific slogan was Pepsi
29:39
Speaker 3: cola hits the spot twelve full ounces. That's a lot,
29:43
Speaker 3: twice as much for a nickel too. Pepsi cola is
29:46
Speaker 3: the drink for you.
29:48
Speaker 2: Fun. It's a fun little nursery rhyme.
29:50
Speaker 1: A lot of people seem to take this as a
29:53
Speaker 1: personal attack, like you're calling me cheap. You know, folks
29:57
Speaker 1: were buying pepsi, but they were bindly luxury cola. They
30:01
Speaker 1: were buying it to hide at home because they were
30:04
Speaker 1: worried about looking like there were skin flints and they said,
30:08
Speaker 1: like in this era, people would you would drink pepsi
30:12
Speaker 1: if it was just you and the kids at the house,
30:14
Speaker 1: but if guests came over, you would serve them coca cola.
30:18
Speaker 1: And there was even a thing where people would like
30:20
Speaker 1: pour pepsi into the glasses they gave people, but they
30:23
Speaker 1: would bring out the coca cola bottle in the living room.
30:27
Speaker 1: So it's like pepsi cola fraud.
30:29
Speaker 2: It was nuts.
30:30
Speaker 4: So true story here. When my family first moved from
30:34
Speaker 4: Detroit to Atlanta, my mom wanted to live there, having
30:37
Speaker 4: a house, right, my mom wanted to store and there's
30:38
Speaker 4: a deal in pepsi, and she about a couple two
30:40
Speaker 4: letters pepsi. Didn't think anything about it, and she said,
30:44
Speaker 4: like people were like seriously offended. And I think this
30:46
Speaker 4: might be much more of like you're in Atlanta, but
30:49
Speaker 4: there is still like that whole you know, perception about
30:52
Speaker 4: pepsi and coke where it's like, uh, yeah, you don't
30:55
Speaker 4: serve it in certain parts parts of this country.
30:58
Speaker 2: Right right, this is not the up for you.
31:00
Speaker 3: It is jarring when you go to a fast food
31:02
Speaker 3: restaurant or like even like a whatever sit down restaurant,
31:05
Speaker 3: you order a coke and they're like, we only have
31:06
Speaker 3: pepsi products and I'm just like, I'm fine. Yeah, you know,
31:10
Speaker 3: there is a sort of like inherent sort of aggression
31:13
Speaker 3: that comes with that in the in this part of
31:14
Speaker 3: the country.
31:15
Speaker 2: It's true.
31:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, I usually will just take that as a sign
31:19
Speaker 1: from the sign from the universe that today is a
31:22
Speaker 1: water drinking day. Back when I was drinking more soda,
31:25
Speaker 1: but also amc theaters.
31:28
Speaker 2: I just learned this.
31:29
Speaker 1: They got they got taken over by pepsi or they
31:32
Speaker 1: got gentrified by pepsi. I went to watch Oppenheimer for
31:36
Speaker 1: Friends of Ours and I ordered a coke and the
31:39
Speaker 1: kid at the counter said, we only have pepsi. Hey,
31:42
Speaker 1: you know what I did, don't I got.
31:43
Speaker 2: A bottled water? Yeah? Smart? What is that dasani?
31:47
Speaker 1: They Oh, gosh, Dosani's a coke product. Okay, what's the
31:51
Speaker 1: pepsi equivalent of disani? I can't remember, but I bet
31:54
Speaker 1: you they've got one.
31:55
Speaker 2: They have to. They have to.
31:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, So why you're why You're like, I'm googling cow
32:00
Speaker 1: kited up. I'm sure we'll wreck awkwardida. Okay, that makes sense.
32:04
Speaker 1: It was an aquiffina. It had to be so back
32:07
Speaker 1: in the day because people were worried about looking like
32:11
Speaker 1: cheap skates. They didn't want to be associated too strongly
32:14
Speaker 1: with drinking pepsi.
32:15
Speaker 2: PEPs knew about damage control. Yeah that's not good.
32:18
Speaker 3: Okay, we've got to reverse this marketing train wreck because
32:22
Speaker 3: clearly we have made a horrible mistake and we need
32:25
Speaker 3: to revamp our image.
32:27
Speaker 2: Right, it's maybe we go ham in the other direction.
32:30
Speaker 2: So they did.
32:31
Speaker 1: They did exactly that. They wanted a better catchphrase. So
32:35
Speaker 1: from nineteen fifty three to the early nineteen sixty one
32:40
Speaker 1: they had a different campaign, and the campaign's name was
32:43
Speaker 1: be Sociable, which feels like communist propaganda, where your monocle exactly,
32:51
Speaker 1: you know, pinky up when sipping this champagne of gola
32:57
Speaker 1: from your tiny crystal goblin.
33:00
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean seriously, you know they they totally you know,
33:05
Speaker 3: jump the shark in the other direction. First, the past
33:09
Speaker 3: pepsi is just for the poor, and now this one
33:11
Speaker 3: is just for the like the upper crust, and that
33:14
Speaker 3: doesn't sit well either. You guys are trying to reach
33:17
Speaker 3: a general audience who keeps screwing this up.
33:20
Speaker 2: It's very interesting. Yeah, it was like it was like.
33:23
Speaker 1: They had some kind of weird Twilight Zone esque computer
33:30
Speaker 1: that was saying if the poor.
33:32
Speaker 2: Don't. We will go for the rich.
33:34
Speaker 3: But you need Don Draper on the case man, he
33:36
Speaker 3: would have come up with a way better catch ras.
33:39
Speaker 1: And the thing is, if you look at these ads,
33:42
Speaker 1: you'll see pet people drinking pepsi in public group settings,
33:46
Speaker 1: no longer hiding the shame of drinking pepsi cola. But
33:50
Speaker 1: these folks who are depicted, they're all a little bit
33:54
Speaker 1: too cookie cutter, a little bit too Norman Rockwell. And
33:58
Speaker 1: this is right around the time gets super into.
34:01
Speaker 2: Rock and roll. People would to be edgy and rebel.
34:04
Speaker 3: Now isn't that funny, Because wasn't the early Coke advertising
34:10
Speaker 3: was exactly that, Yeah, Norman Rockwell kind of stuff.
34:12
Speaker 2: But they but they got the timing right. They got
34:14
Speaker 2: the timing right.
34:15
Speaker 3: Pepsi was a daylight and a dollar short, and they
34:17
Speaker 3: like totally were behind the times. And then you know,
34:20
Speaker 3: the tide had turned and Coke with I think I
34:23
Speaker 3: think a big again. I think Coke's the better drink,
34:25
Speaker 3: but much better marketing. They were always right finger on
34:29
Speaker 3: the pulse. They invented freaking polar bears in Santa Claus. Yeah,
34:33
Speaker 3: and they'll check me on the first one.
34:35
Speaker 1: They also had the They had their own share of missteps,
34:39
Speaker 1: but they had a lot more successes. Their ratio was good.
34:43
Speaker 1: Pepsi missed the youth market, the most powerful market in soda,
34:47
Speaker 1: because they were they were increasingly looking like the avatar
34:54
Speaker 1: of the suffocating traditional society and social roles.
34:58
Speaker 2: They hated rock and roll, you know.
35:00
Speaker 1: Pepsi was now the one saying no sock ops for you.
35:05
Speaker 1: And so they realized this when they did some studies
35:09
Speaker 1: and found that as a soda brand they were now
35:14
Speaker 1: associated with struggling, married couples who are painfully budget conscious.
35:21
Speaker 1: So they're not the fun drink anymore. They're the had
35:24
Speaker 1: kids too early drink.
35:26
Speaker 3: Oh wow, okay, yeah, And they came up with another
35:29
Speaker 3: banger of a slogan, absolutely mind boggling. Now it's Pepsi
35:35
Speaker 3: for those who think young. It's so convoluted, it's basically
35:41
Speaker 3: has no meaning.
35:42
Speaker 1: It's like Monty Burns, it's a Monty Burns idea. Now
35:46
Speaker 1: it's Pepsi for those who think young.
35:49
Speaker 3: Why then, Now, It's like that part is a little
35:52
Speaker 3: bit perplexing, and the idea of thinking young is inherently
35:57
Speaker 3: a put on. Right, It's like you're you're already casting
36:01
Speaker 3: your audience as a bunch of phonies who are actually
36:05
Speaker 3: old but just doing their best to think.
36:07
Speaker 1: You or somehow cognitively impaired. This one only lasts from
36:12
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty one to nineteen sixty three. Like you say,
36:15
Speaker 1: it's a swing and a miss. But they had a
36:17
Speaker 1: lot writing on this, so they went back to the
36:19
Speaker 1: drawing board and they returned with come alive. You're at
36:23
Speaker 1: the Pepsi generation.
36:25
Speaker 2: This was a success. Actual banger, actual chess. Yeah, really
36:29
Speaker 2: good right here.
36:29
Speaker 3: I mean, if we're just spitballing slogans, wouldn't this be
36:32
Speaker 3: the first one where you'd be like, that's good?
36:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's like pepsi banger slogans.
36:37
Speaker 2: For a drink.
36:37
Speaker 3: I think it's so weird and what's the word. It's
36:40
Speaker 3: almost propagandistic. It's like you're it is for sure, but
36:44
Speaker 3: like what makes a good one? It's all bullshit, Like
36:47
Speaker 3: there's nothing about any drink that will make any of
36:50
Speaker 3: this stuff true, you know what I mean.
36:52
Speaker 2: So it's just like, which one is the thing that
36:54
Speaker 2: makes you feel a spark of hope and excitement around this?
37:00
Speaker 3: Sugar water carbonated beverett bad for you, really actively bad
37:06
Speaker 3: for you?
37:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a there is a brilliance to it because
37:10
Speaker 1: it's incredibly inclusive. You're if you want to be in
37:14
Speaker 1: the Pepsi generation, Yeah, you're part of a movement now
37:19
Speaker 1: Star Treking.
37:19
Speaker 3: You know, Sorry, it just sounds the word generation just
37:22
Speaker 3: sounds inherently futuristic to me because of Star Trek.
37:24
Speaker 2: I don't know why.
37:25
Speaker 1: That's just it sounds inherently massive to me. And so
37:29
Speaker 1: both younger people who want to think of themselves as
37:33
Speaker 1: hip and popular and older people who want to think
37:35
Speaker 1: of themselves as youthful and hip, they like this. Pepsi
37:38
Speaker 1: becomes associated with that youth popularity, success acceptance, Pepsi. They
37:43
Speaker 1: even had a ditty that they put.
37:46
Speaker 2: In here, which.
37:49
Speaker 1: Maybe we might play a clip if we if we
37:52
Speaker 1: find it.
37:52
Speaker 2: But what's it to the tune of is it its
37:54
Speaker 2: own tune? It's like I'm trying to think it's imposed
37:57
Speaker 2: a melody.
37:58
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, well I'm if you guys can't tell him
38:01
Speaker 3: on the back end of being a little bit ill,
38:03
Speaker 3: so my voice is a little bit shot, So I'm
38:05
Speaker 3: not gonna attempt to sing because it would be sad.
38:06
Speaker 3: But I was supposed to do like a rap, like
38:08
Speaker 3: an eighties rap. There's a whole new way of living.
38:11
Speaker 3: Pepsi helps to apply the drive. It's got a lot
38:15
Speaker 3: to give to those who like to live because Pepsi
38:19
Speaker 3: helps them come alive. It's the Pepsi generation coming at you,
38:23
Speaker 3: going straw.
38:24
Speaker 2: I like that.
38:25
Speaker 3: Interpretational and the less I could do the mark come
38:29
Speaker 3: alive though, what an invitation? Yeah right, yeah yeah in English? Uh,
38:33
Speaker 3: the Pepsi boy, there we go.
38:35
Speaker 2: This is the term.
38:36
Speaker 1: Pepsi's market share expands. It explodes past the demographics, the
38:41
Speaker 1: geopolitical newss good news, good news. The growth of the
38:45
Speaker 1: Pepsi empire seems unstoppable until the new ad campaigns reached China,
38:50
Speaker 1: where sales plummet. Uh, we're gonna have we can. I
38:55
Speaker 1: explore a couple of different versions of the story, but
38:58
Speaker 1: you know, the big takeaway. The big takeaway is that
39:02
Speaker 1: because pepsi helps them come alive doesn't quite translate the
39:06
Speaker 1: same way in the Chinese language. Well, first of all,
39:09
Speaker 1: I think we've talked about this on stuff they don't
39:11
Speaker 1: want you to know. China is obviously known for many things,
39:16
Speaker 1: but one is censorship of American culture. So if you
39:21
Speaker 1: have like films that play in China. There are versions
39:24
Speaker 1: that you know, for the Chinese market that remove things
39:27
Speaker 1: for cultural sensitivity purposes, and one of them is, I
39:30
Speaker 1: believe up until pretty recently, they they weren't allowed to
39:33
Speaker 1: have ghosts, Like ghosts is a thing where they like
39:36
Speaker 1: they get no, that's a no go. Ghostbusters I think
39:39
Speaker 1: did not you know, play in China and stuff like
39:41
Speaker 1: that because of the cultural phenomenon of the ancestor worship.
39:48
Speaker 1: I think that's accurate praying to your ancestors, revering you know,
39:52
Speaker 1: the dead, and like treating them as though they were
39:54
Speaker 1: still you know, have a place at your table. All
39:56
Speaker 1: the shrines and all of that kind of stuff. It's
39:58
Speaker 1: a big deal.
39:59
Speaker 3: So when you have a mass market media blitz promising
40:05
Speaker 3: to raise the dead, you know, that's just absolutely insulting.
40:11
Speaker 2: How dare you right?
40:12
Speaker 1: It's yeah, the censorship is real with this and the
40:17
Speaker 1: idea that like, okay, the way Pepsi pictures this is
40:22
Speaker 1: come alive meaning to feel energized or Peppi with Pepsi
40:27
Speaker 1: welcome folks.
40:28
Speaker 2: You can have that one.
40:30
Speaker 3: But that's the thing though, dude, Even to me, I
40:32
Speaker 3: read come alive and that it can it's very broad
40:38
Speaker 3: and vague, and it's like, maybe it's a phrase that
40:40
Speaker 3: has fallen out of fashion, but I don't even think
40:42
Speaker 3: about it like that. So for it to you know,
40:44
Speaker 3: have to translate this again the feeling of what does
40:47
Speaker 3: that mean? It's not something that there maybe is an
40:50
Speaker 3: analog to in that language.
40:52
Speaker 1: Sure yeah, like a lot of idioms as well. So
40:55
Speaker 1: the message translates to something along the lines of Pepsi
40:59
Speaker 1: brings or dead ancestors.
41:01
Speaker 2: Back to life.
41:02
Speaker 1: And this anecdote is often quoted in marketing schools and
41:06
Speaker 1: speeches and various things as a textbookcase of when advertising
41:11
Speaker 1: and translation go wrong. But there are a couple of
41:14
Speaker 1: issues with the story. First, a lot of versions claim
41:17
Speaker 1: the entire slogan was come alive with pepsi, but the
41:20
Speaker 1: real slogan is, as we said, come alive. You're in
41:23
Speaker 1: the pepsi generation. And that might seem like splitting hairs
41:26
Speaker 1: or soda bubbles. But in translation, small differences do yield
41:31
Speaker 1: big results and big consequences.
41:33
Speaker 2: So there's another little wrinkle in the story. Most versions
41:36
Speaker 2: don't specify which language got hit by the mistranslation. Ben,
41:42
Speaker 2: I know you're a student of Chinese, and there are
41:47
Speaker 2: different dialects. Of course, is Mandarin Cantonese, right, yeah, it's
41:53
Speaker 2: a huge country. Mandarins the official language, Cantonese is very common,
41:58
Speaker 2: and there are any other number of dialects and separate
42:01
Speaker 2: languages for different ethnic groups. How similar are they which ones.
42:05
Speaker 3: Any like that's the same manner? Any Cantonese? Are we
42:09
Speaker 3: talking like completely different?
42:12
Speaker 4: Or like?
42:12
Speaker 2: Is it sort of like maybe Dutch is to German?
42:14
Speaker 2: I see? Yeah, so.
42:17
Speaker 1: They use the same character sets, like the same idiograms
42:21
Speaker 1: and stuff, so wherever you go you can read the
42:24
Speaker 1: same sentence, but the pronunciations can become mutually unintelligible. Mandarin
42:31
Speaker 1: has four tones, but Cantonese has six, so it's much
42:35
Speaker 1: more difficult at least wow for people to like honestly,
42:40
Speaker 1: for people our age who have never tried to learn Cantonese,
42:44
Speaker 1: it would be almost impossible. So it's it's tough, and
42:48
Speaker 1: it does make a difference to figure out which language
42:51
Speaker 1: this got mistranslated into. Other versions of the story. Sometimes
42:56
Speaker 1: say the mistranslation didn't occur in China at all, that
42:59
Speaker 1: it was in Thailand or Germany.
43:01
Speaker 2: But in anyway, how do we not have better records
43:03
Speaker 2: of this?
43:04
Speaker 3: Though you'd think that like historians of marketing would have,
43:08
Speaker 3: you know, got the clippings, you know what I mean,
43:11
Speaker 3: there would be artifacts out there that could prove this
43:14
Speaker 3: from different campaigns.
43:15
Speaker 1: I'm gonna say it's because PEPSI is not super proud
43:18
Speaker 1: of it.
43:19
Speaker 3: Yeah, but we know, I mean, I guess this is
43:21
Speaker 3: also probably pre Internet, so they probably were able to,
43:24
Speaker 3: you know, do the best they could to pull any
43:27
Speaker 3: examples of that stuff from the public record. But in
43:30
Speaker 3: any case, you will hear the mistranslation phrase in one
43:33
Speaker 3: of a handful of different ways, including come alive and
43:36
Speaker 3: out of the grave with PEPSI works for Halloween maybe,
43:41
Speaker 3: but not the rest of the year. And again with
43:43
Speaker 3: the cultural stuff. This is wild, but it's so interesting
43:46
Speaker 3: too because the cultural argument really is most profound, I
43:50
Speaker 3: think with China because of that, you know, very important
43:54
Speaker 3: spiritual connection to ancestors. Another one was PEPSI will bring
43:58
Speaker 3: your ancestors back from the dead, right, and then bring
44:01
Speaker 3: dead ancestors back from heaven.
44:03
Speaker 2: That sounds wow, that's a that's a okay, that's I'll
44:07
Speaker 2: give it that.
44:08
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, it's are we talking are they zombies
44:10
Speaker 3: now or are they like back like they were cemetery situation.
44:14
Speaker 2: What happens when you run out of pepsi? Right? They
44:17
Speaker 2: don't do they turn?
44:19
Speaker 1: So with all these do they do they crave pepsi
44:22
Speaker 1: right when they they've risen in the night for the
44:26
Speaker 1: pepsi cola. With all the caveats were giving you, it
44:29
Speaker 1: might sound like we're giving we're spinning a tall tale,
44:32
Speaker 1: ridiculous historians. Uh, maybe a bit of bait and switch. However,
44:37
Speaker 1: we have to have those caveats because this is still
44:42
Speaker 1: probably I'm going to say probably true to some degree.
44:45
Speaker 1: Pepsi has never once come out and denied that this occurred.
44:48
Speaker 1: They have never made an official statement of any kind
44:52
Speaker 1: about this, despite it being one of the most legendary
44:55
Speaker 1: stories in all of Western marketing lore. And it makes
44:58
Speaker 1: you think, you know, we're left with two conclusions. Maybe
45:02
Speaker 1: pepsi did have a sort of stumble since it was
45:04
Speaker 1: pretty widely reported by multiple otherwise solid sources. Or maybe
45:09
Speaker 1: pepsi really brought people back from the dead and it
45:12
Speaker 1: got covered up. You know, it's one of those two.
45:14
Speaker 1: There is no in between.
45:16
Speaker 3: I mean, look, I might rethink my position on pepsi
45:19
Speaker 3: if in fact did bring back you know, loved ones
45:22
Speaker 3: from the dead.
45:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't, but again, I need to know the rules.
45:25
Speaker 3: Isn't a monkey's pod type situation, you know, I just
45:28
Speaker 3: there's a lot of questions, a lot of questions.
45:30
Speaker 1: A temporary thing, is it long lasting? Is there a
45:33
Speaker 1: way to send people back again?
45:36
Speaker 2: I don't know.
45:36
Speaker 1: We've got a lot of questions. We're looking for the
45:39
Speaker 1: answers as we speak. Currently on a side note, maybe
45:43
Speaker 1: this is where we end today. Currently on a side note.
45:46
Speaker 1: Pepsi's name in Chinese characters translates to one hundred ways
45:50
Speaker 1: to good luck, and Koch's name, Coca Cola's name translates
45:54
Speaker 1: to quote to allow the mouth to be able to rejoice.
46:00
Speaker 2: Feel like, that's terrible, That is weird.
46:03
Speaker 3: There's a brand of some kind. It's candy or something.
46:07
Speaker 3: I'm a picture.
46:08
Speaker 2: You know what it is.
46:08
Speaker 3: It's Twizzlers. Do you remember what Twizzler's slogan was, You
46:11
Speaker 3: guys makes mouths happy. Oh, that's right, yeah, makes mouths happy.
46:19
Speaker 2: I'm guy.
46:20
Speaker 3: And they don't say mouths when they do it, they
46:23
Speaker 3: speak it out loud and they say makes mouths happy.
46:26
Speaker 3: And in the in the commercials in the nineties like
46:28
Speaker 3: Pee Wee's playhouse style kind of weird clamation of giant
46:31
Speaker 3: lips and red vine pulsating twizzlers going in and.
46:36
Speaker 2: Out of the mouths.
46:37
Speaker 3: It's a very very macabre, like those MTV bumpers from
46:40
Speaker 3: those days, you know, and really weird stuff there was.
46:43
Speaker 1: There's an entire history we could do of weird advertising
46:47
Speaker 1: slogans that aren't even mistranslations, the ones that have aged
46:51
Speaker 1: so poorly that if you look at them now you
46:54
Speaker 1: would assume they were mistranslations. But this also perhaps is
46:59
Speaker 1: a continuing series, because there are many other other strange mistranslations,
47:04
Speaker 1: some of which almost led to nuclear war, like we
47:08
Speaker 1: will bury you slapping the shoe on the counter for
47:11
Speaker 1: any history, and then some that are some that are
47:14
Speaker 1: more comical, of course, like you can some Chinese shopkeepers
47:19
Speaker 1: the way they wrote coca cola translates into bite the
47:23
Speaker 1: wax tadpole.
47:25
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, if you heard that way, that for me, though,
47:28
Speaker 2: the wet sprocket.
47:29
Speaker 1: That's that's specific enough for me that if I if
47:33
Speaker 1: I was in a different country, I saw a drink
47:35
Speaker 1: that was advertising itself as bite the wax tadpole, I'd
47:38
Speaker 1: buy one. I would buy one and lose under like
47:40
Speaker 1: two dollars.
47:42
Speaker 2: I would definitely try, no question.
47:44
Speaker 3: It also sounds like a really kind of fun expression
47:47
Speaker 3: for like dying, you know, bite the wax tadpole.
47:51
Speaker 1: Straight out of a Jimmy Carter speech. There we go,
47:54
Speaker 1: h yeah, tune in. Maybe we'll have an upcoming episode
47:57
Speaker 1: on further mistranslations. Oh and well meaning astronomer who accidentally
48:02
Speaker 1: started all the Mars conspiracies, etca, et cetera audible mention
48:06
Speaker 1: to various unfortunate names of automobiles with this, thank you
48:11
Speaker 1: very much to our super producer, mister Max Williams. Thank you,
48:15
Speaker 1: of course to Jimmy Carter. And in defense of the translator,
48:20
Speaker 1: we mentioned Seymour again, he's not incompetent, like we said,
48:24
Speaker 1: it's just not everybody always has a great day.
48:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, it's true. Huge thanks to Alex Williams.
48:30
Speaker 3: Composed to our theme, Christophraciotis needs, Jeff Coates here in
48:33
Speaker 3: spirit A J. Jacobs the Puzzler, Jonathan Strickland the quizt
48:39
Speaker 3: and you Ben, my linguistic writer Die and also with
48:44
Speaker 3: Jo We'll see next Niebooks. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
48:54
Speaker 3: visit the iHeartRadio app Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen
48:57
Speaker 3: to your favorite shows.