Frivolous and funny

This is extremely silly... and fun... I was reading over a role-playing game book, a satire of sexist role-playing games, called Macho Women With Guns. It's a send-up of the ways that female characters in gaming are treated - a very funny book by Greg Porter, who I note is also the author of "Black Death", an excellent strategy board game in which everyone plays different medieval plagues and tries to kill the entire population of Europe.

What does this have to do with translation? Well, I noticed in the introduction to Macho Women With Guns, there's a boastful note:

How To Say It

Macho Women With Guns is published in a number of languages, which says something about universal tastes in gaming, I suppose. If you wake up in some strange country with a few local currency units in your pocket, and have a hankering to buy a game, ask for:

English - Macho Women with Guns
Etruscan - Ampuial.tur.lupulal
Finnish - Aseistetut Machonaiset
French - Nanas Macho et Chargées
German - Machoweiber mit dicken Kanonen
Irish - Mna Fearamhlacht le Gunnai
Italian - Maschiacces Armate Pesantemente
Icelandic - Hressar Stelpur med Byssur
Klingon - b'pu' yoH qeng HIchpu'
Norwegian - Toffe Damer med Skytevapen
Ruritanian - Muldr Deina gam Bangibangy
Russian - Muzhestvyenniye zhenshchini s'arudiyami
Spanish - Amazonas con Pistolas
Swedish - Machokvinnor med Vapen

*Both the designer and BTRC disavow all responsibility for faux pas, bodily harm, or extended incarceration as a result of actually using these translations.

technorati tags: translation, humor, mistranslation, literary translation, gaming, rpgs