Helmet Head

Posted on | March 27, 2010 |

I was tidying up one of my motorcycles for spring, and I read the label Mr Honda had put on the gas tank of this, and several million other such motorcycles.

It said: ‘Conserve nature’.

Fair enough. A nice ‘green’ message. Good.

Below it was the same message in German and French, and in each case the meaning was slightly different. In German it said ‘Think safety’ and in French it said ‘Preserve your life’ (basic translations here).

These are radically different messages, although you can see that they might have bubbled up from the same well-spring. So the question has to be whether Mr Honda wanted it thus, or whether Mr Honda’s translators made some interesting mistakes.

Should we preserve our lives above all, no matter what? Or play safe? Or are we best advised to look out for Nature and help conserve it?

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