Joie de Vivre Magazine: space exploration

Monday, April 24, 2023

Charting the Course of History (Interesting Quotes or Misquotes(?))

When charting the course of history or human events, communication is critical. Miscommunication, misunderstandings, errors in translations could result in the masses believing that earth is being invaded by aliens.

"One of the extraordinary things about human events is that the unthinkable becomes thinkable.” - - Salman Rushdie quotes (Indian born British Writer, b.1947)

The link below is to a Cracked article will really give you pause and make you think long and hard, and choose your words carefully; especially when you are not speaking in your native tongue. These errors – misunderstandings – “mistranslations” - literally changed the course of human events.

6 Mistranslations That Changed The World

Here is a quick summary of 4 of the 6 mistranslations.

Someone misunderstood an astronomer's reference to “channels”, and next thing we knew there were Martians. Even though the “lost in mistranslation” mistake was finally explained, it was too late. People had bought into the idea of life on planet Mars. No turning back.
Nikita Khrushchev uttered a statement that was not properly interpreted by the Americans. The USA took it as a threat and before anyone could misspell the name “Nikita”, the United States and Russia were in a race for space!
The incident about President Carter's Polish interpreter will make your side hurt from laughing so hard.
But the mistranslation that caused two atoms bombs to be dropped on Japan? It's not funny!

There were two more mistranslations left, but couldn't finish reading the article. After reading the part about President Harry Truman's reaction to Japan's response as to whether or not they would surrender, my jaw dropped.

Could this possibly be the real historical record?

Today is April 22 and it's Earth Day. To celebrate I am recommending that my blog readers subscribe to Mother Nature Network. If you love planet earth, you'll love the MNN publication. They are a constant and consistent reminder of the celebration of life on this wonderful planet that we take for granted. A life which, no matter what the space explorers and scientists or Nostradamus tell you, can be never duplicated by building a colony on Mars or Titan or anywhere else in the universe.

Click to view an infographic depicting "NASA's Plan to Put Thousands of People in Space Colonies" (click on the image to enlarge if necessary). Infographic from Space.com.

The reality is we need to make an earnest effort to maintain the Earth because it's all we've got!
Happy Earth Day!