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Matthew Haughey

We got lots of spam at MetaFilter and one time someone posted trying to promote something called "Exemplary Purchase" and we kept wondering what are they were trying to say until we realized it was a translation error, they meant to say "Best Buy" in English.

Ten years on, every time I drive past a BestBuy, I think "Exemplary Purchase!"

4 comments
Brian Danger Hicks

@mathowie My dad always calls Best Buy "Least objectionable purchase"

Koantig

@mathowie
from 2021:
> (...) Our study introduces the concept of tortured phrases: unexpected weird phrases in lieu of established ones, such as ‘counterfeit consciousness’ instead of ‘artificial intelligence.’

Examples:
Colossal information -> Big data
Counterfeit consciousness -> Artificial intelligence
Flag to commotion -> Signal to noise

arxiv.org/abs/2107.06751
nature.com/articles/d41586-021

@mathowie
from 2021:
> (...) Our study introduces the concept of tortured phrases: unexpected weird phrases in lieu of established ones, such as ‘counterfeit consciousness’ instead of ‘artificial intelligence.’

Examples:
Colossal information -> Big data
Counterfeit consciousness -> Artificial intelligence
Flag to commotion -> Signal to noise

rameez

@mathowie Joey with his thesaurus again. 🤷🏻‍♂️

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