heh

And my favourite headline from today (well so far anyway) comes from ProMed:

RIFT VALLEY FEVER - SAUDI ARABIA (02): NOT
******************************************
A ProMED-mail post
<http://www.promedmail.org>
ProMED-mail is a program of the
International Society for Infectious Diseases
<http://www.isid.org>

Date: Wed 3 Jun 2009
From: LB <diseasetracker@gmail.com>


Re: ProMED-mail Rift Valley fever - Saudi Arabia, alert 20090602.2053
---------------------------------------------------------------------
The original article in Saudi Wave, which was so badly translated to
English by Middle East Online, actually attributes the deaths to
dengue fever not Rift Valley fever. Below is the Arabic language
article. I don't know how someone can make that mistake as the names
of the diseases in Arabic have no similarities.

[The URL for the Saudi Wave article for the benefit of those able to
read Arabic text is
<http://www.saudiwave.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1036:q-q-&catid=50:2008-12-02-08-52-24&itemid=115>.]

--
LB
<diseasetracker@gmail.com>

[ProMED-mail is indebted to correspondent LB for provision of this
information and correction, and we apologize to our readers for
posting an inaccurate and misleading translation. - Mod.CP]

[It turns out that the original Saudi Wave URL (in Arabic) has links
to English and French versions of the article. Both refer to dengue
fever rather than Rift Valley fever
<http://www.saudiwave.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1032:the-mermaid-of-the-red-sea-swims-in-a-sea-of-sewage&catid=84:interior-affairs&itemid=182>
-
CopyEd.MJ]


Like seriously, so not.

I also love the slightly irritated and aggrieved tone of the writer commenting on how badly the translation turned out given the disease names apparently are quite different in Arabic (and English come to that.)

Yes, the things that make me laugh are quite minor.