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The Water Sheep

'From time to time there is a resurgence of interest in  machine translation and for a short while both national and international daily papers carry articles which purport either to explain the progress in the field or to debunk the art.'

 

So starts an article in Electronics Weekly's edition of March 8th 1961 written by Dr Andrew Booth, head of the Department of Numerical Automation, Birkbeck College, University of London.

 

'One of the most recent suggested that, at an American Government agency, routine translation of technical Russian material was being produced by a machine and that during a single week so many references to a "water sheep" occurred that the readers enquired what this curious animal was', writes Dr Booth.

 'Further investigation then showed', continues Dr Booth's article, 'that the true meaning was "hydraulic ram".'

 

TOMORROW: TOP TEN TWITTERERS

 

 

 

 

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Comments (2)

Peter Smith:

Nice one - they can't tell a sheep from a ram!

David Manners Author Profile Page:

As many a Welshman has found to his cost, Peter.

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