[wahern]

We have an example of the opposite mistranslation in how we translate the infamous Iranian political phrase "marg bar America" to "death to America" instead of the more reasonable "down with America". http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=31116

TL;DR: Marg bar in Iranian political culture has been for nearly a century the equivalent of saying "damn" in English. In English saying "damn Iran" doesn't literally mean you wish Iran or Iranians to burn in eternal hellfire, although it would have once upon a time. Rick Steves has an anecdote where, amidst traffic in sweltering Tehran, his translator translated their driver's exasperated exclamation as "death to traffic", causing a lightbulb to go off in Steves' head. (https://blog.ricksteves.com/blog/death-to-israel-death-to-tr...)

Although, at this point I think Iranian political leaders purposefully make use of this mistranslation to antagonize Americans without appearing antagonistic to Iranians. Likewise when the Iranian President stated that Israel needed to be wiped off the map--AFAIU he purposefully made use of a sort of double entendre which could be taken literally or figuratively, appeasing both liberal and conservative Iranian factions.

[mips_avatar]

This is really interesting. Thanks for sharing.