Ic eom Hogweard and min gereord is Englisc, ðæt is begen minra ealfædra Englisc ðærin ic write and todæges 'English'.
- No one is fluent in Old English. The task of providing technical computing terms in a language which died in functional terms in an age long before the invention even of Babbage's mechanical computer, let alone the intricacies of today's computerised world, is of a complexity which is not lost on me. The idea is not to provide words and phrases which are simply twentieth century English forced through a Saxon sieve, but to write as my forefathers spoke. Old English is far more sophisticated than is often thought: it was the tongue of people no less brilliant than their descendants.
- My favourite example of bad translation is some genuine Army Urdu (perhaps meant tongue in cheek):
- 'Tum lakri lakri tum?'
- Literally 'You (thou) wood wood you?'.
