I was talking to my friends D&B yesterday about the lousy translation of the title of Fassbinder’s “Faustrecht der Freiheit” into the English “Fox and His Friends” and how the German is much more rich with meaning, implying maybe “law of the jungle” or “price of freedom” or some such thing along those lines.
But even more interesting than that was the realization, pointed out by D, that when you put Faustrecht der Freiheit into Google asking for translation, it doesn’t come back with a translation of the phrase, it responds with fox and his friends.
It’s almost as though Google has become even more intelligent but more stupid too. Wikipedia style truth-through-consensus seems to be spreading to language equivalency. Of course communication is based on consensus but there seems to be a step or two missing in this particular equation.
