Turning to the canonical bad poetry includied for free in Gormenghast, we get:

Original text:
"A mule at prayer. ignore him; turn to me"
...54 translations later we get:
"Program is. Privacy"

Just to add some more fun, here is a prominent politician speaking:

Original text:
"Throughout her career, she's been a trailblazer, breaking glass ceilings in 
both academia and government."
...54 translations later we get:
"Universities and other government Agencies and interest groups "to prevent 
the glass ceiling.""

Original text:
"She's flat-out brilliant, easily one of the best legal minds I've ever met. 
But most importantly, she's also someone who understands that the application 
of the law holds real consequences for Americans in all walks of life."
...54 translations later we get:
"The finding that the increase in American society, particularly the 
opportunity for more evidence from police"

Original text:
"With her resume, she's had no shortage of lucrative opportunities. But her 
parents were both public servants -- her mother a school teacher and her 
father a housing lawyer who fought for tenants' rights -- and she has always 
followed their example."
...54 translations later we get:
"Is the time to talk about money. However, government officials, teachers and 
parents, the father - the war, he said - and very good"

Ouch!  It wasn't supposed to be like this ... :)

Lotta fun!

Wesley Parish

On Mon, 10 May 2010, Amanda Babcock Furrow wrote:
> Via SpecGram: a machine translation whispers/telephone game that
> managed to turn my input "Then the North Wind made a bet with the sun
> that he could not cause the traveler to take off his cloak" into
> the result "M no contact with customers", via 25 round-trip
> translations between English and other world languages.  Performance
> seems to be especially bad (in general) with Hindi and Hebrew.
>
> http://www.conveythis.com/translation.php
>
> tylakèhlpë'fö,
> Amanda



-- 
Clinersterton beademung, with all of love - RIP James Blish
-----
George Kelischek - "To impress those high-tech computer types, 
tell them what an Ocarina really is: 
an animal-activated-solid-state-multi-frequency-sound-synthesizer." 
-----
Mau e ki, he aha te mea nui?
You ask, what is the most important thing?
Maku e ki, he tangata, he tangata, he tangata.
I reply, it is people, it is people, it is people.