Bungled Brochure Leads to Battle of the Buck-Passers

0 Comments | Insight on the News, Dec 20, 1999 | by Sean Paige

In the tower of babble this multicultural America has become, it sometimes is difficult bridging the language barriers. But no longer, it seems, for the federal government, which bends over backward to ensure that the nation's non-English speakers get the word on all the benefits their beneficent Uncle Sam bestows.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD, for instance, translated one recent pamphlet on the rights and responsibilities of residents into eight different languages, plus one into braille and into, well, pure gibberish. The pamphlet -- 5,000 of which were printed, some of which were mailed -- was supposed to be translated into the French Creole spoken by Haitians, according to a story in the Chicago Reader but, instead ended up reading like it was dictated by some reggae singer who had been puffing too much ganja.

"Dis is a brochure distributed to yuh cawze HUD ah provide some fawm ahf asistance aur subsidy fi di whole apawtment buildin," the pamphlet reportedly reads, further explaining that "yuh as a rezedent, ave di rights aim rispansabilities to elp mek yah HUD-asisted owzing ah behta owne fi ahn yuh fambily." The message, moreover, is signed by HUD "Sekretary Andrew M. Cuomo fella."

When the pamphlet became publicized and "rispansability" for the gaffe had to be taken, HUD tried to pass the buck to the Government Printing Office, or GPO, which passed the buck to a Buffalo, N.Y., printing subcontractor, which passed it to a translation company in Toronto. They passed it back to GPO, which passed it back to HUD, saying that HUD had asked only that the pamphlet be translated into Creole, instead of specifying French Creole. Oh contrere mon frere, countered the folks at HUD, saying that GPO contractually took responsibility for an accurate translation. But HUD approved the translation, GPO insists. Hey, we ain't no linguists, said HUD. Your mother wears Army boots, GPO fired back.

At which point the whole sordid subject must be suspended due to a sheer and all-pervasive boredom. But we tink dat yuh git dah picture, mon.