[Paine in the Neck]

I used to use the tagline "Napolean fries the idea powder". I got it from a chinglish menu where it was listed as one of the food items. After many years I have yet to figure out what it could be.

[Calvin Locke]

From my b-school IT class, the anecdote about the first English-Russian/Russian-English translation program, inputting “The spirit is strong, but the flesh is weak” came back out as “The drink is strong, but the meat is bad.”

[Celtic Conservative]

Then there was the first attempt that Coca Cola made to advertise in China. It turns out that "Coca Cola" phonetically translates to "bite the wax tadpole". They hired a linguist after the horrific first attempt at advertising. When Disney built its park in Japan, the translations for some of the rides audio tracks drove the imagineers to distraction. For example the first translation for "dead men tell no tales" on the pirates of the caribbean ride came out to "there is no mouth on a dead person".

CC