This is an important lesson about what happens when you’re too cheap to hire a professional translator, and instead just decide to fire up that Internet thing to do the work for you. A town in Spain has been marketing its food festival as “a clitoris festival” after using Google Translate to translate the name. The town of As Pontes in Galicia holds a yearly festival to celebrate grelo (a local vegetable similar to spinach). Because Galicia has its own distinct language and culture, the name of the festival — Feira do Grelo — had to be translated from Galician into Castilian Spanish for the town’s website. Google Translate, however, interpreted grelo as a Portuguese slang word for ‘clitoris’ and, well … the results included the line: The clitoris is a typical product in Galician cuisine.
The mistake remained on the town’s website for several months before someone noticed the error. The town is considering complaining to Google on the grounds that it should recognize the Galician language. As Pontes, by the way, is on the northwestern coast of Spain, about five hours from Madrid. In case, you know, you had difficulty finding it.
