Editted by Meleri James, walesonline.co.uk
12/04/2011
Read full article and view slideshow here. 

Heard the one about the badly translated shop sign which reads “wines and ghosts” in Welsh?

Or the baffling bilingual road sign that warns Welsh- speaking motorists to beware of “exploding workers”?

Now, some of the funniest, most bizarre and downright inept mistranslations ever to have adorned the nation’s highways have been collected together in one book.

Titled Sgymraeg – the name used for bad translations – it includes a sign between Cardiff and Penarth apparently telling cyclists they had problems with an “inflamed bladder” and a potentially lethal sign for pedestrians in Cardiff reading “Look Right” in English and “Look Left” in Welsh.

But if these examples make you laugh, they may well bring the odd tear to the eye as well as the standard of some translation work is revealed.

The Sgymraegs were first collected by Welsh language magazine Golwg after readers started sending them to Jac Codi Baw’s satirical column on the magazine’s pages.

Since then they have become a popular feature of the weekly publication and other examples can now also be seen on the internet as people share the worst examples seen across Wales on flickr and Twitter – or even ending up on Have I Got News For You.

Read the rest of the story here.