Abraham Lincoln laughed at it. Mark Twain championed it. Monty Python took inspiration from it. And nearly 170 years later, English as She Is Spoke remains one of the most unintentionally funny books ever written.
The phrasebook was published in 1855 by Pedro Carolino to help Portuguese speakers learn English. The only problem? Carolino seemingly didn’t know English. Instead, he cobbled together his masterpiece using a Portuguese-French dictionary and a French-English dictionary—without quite grasping either second language. The result is a gloriously garbled collection of phrases that read like Victorian-era AI gone rogue.
Enjoy these examples:
- Portuguese: “Quem cala consente.” (Silence gives consent.)
- Carolino’s English: “Who is silent give to consent.”
- Portuguese: “Não ponha o carro diante dos bois.” (Don’t put the cart before the horse.)
- Carolino’s English: “Do not put the cart before the oxen.
And in the idiotisms section of the book, my favourite phrase is, “To craunch the marmoset.” To understand the origins of that whacko one, watch this video by Rob Watts on YouTube.
Carolino’s linguistic trainwreck was so entertaining that Mark Twain wrote a preface for a later edition, praising its “miraculous stupidities.” Meanwhile, Lincoln was said to have read it aloud for comic relief.
David Niven referenced a similarly ridiculous phrase—”My postilion has been struck by lightning”—in his autobiography Bring on the Empty Horses, mocking the impracticality of old-fashioned phrasebook.
And Monty Python fans might recognise a spiritual successor in the Dirty Hungarian Phrasebook sketch, where an innocent tourist believes he’s asking for matches but instead proclaims, “My hovercraft is full of eels.”
Despite its absurdity, English as She Is Spoke highlights a serious truth: bad writing can be confusing and hilarious—but not always in the way you intend. If you’d rather avoid your own accidental comedy, Get It Write can help.