Lost in Translation - aka giant facepalm

We have this place in our town. It was conceived to be the defacto hangout for kids. A place to hold events.

Now when they decided to come up with a name for the place, they chose a constellation. You’ll recognise it when looking at the image.

The thing is, that constellation is called Grote Beer in dutch. Which translates to Big Bear as can be seen as well in the image. The thing is though, we all know that particular constellation is called Big Dipper in US-english or The Plough in UK-english).

This venue has been around for around 20 years and it’s been a thorn in my english loving side. I take pride in my largely proper English. And when I see something like this where a word or title has been translated directly (we call this Steenkolen Engels | Broken English) instead of looking up the proper translation. I’m pretty sure internet already was a thing back then.

I’m not even going to go into the fact that it’s largely abandoned by now. Nothing really happens there anymore. I wonder if the dumb-ass name has something to do with it.

For me though, it’s now a thing of the past. I have written it off my chest (that is a thing as wel). I’m done with it.

Let’s hope people use proper translations in the future to name their veneus.