It wasn’t the first time she had to suffer (common) contact, after all. Obama, the Queen herself seemed to take it in stride. It was a breach of one of the classic rules of conduct.įortunately for Mrs. So when First Lady Michelle Obama broke the rule by throwing an arm around Her Majesty, the British media was understandably shocked. Formal protocol for meeting the Queen dictates that you shouldn’t touch her beyond a polite handshake (they call it that, but it’s actually just a brief meeting of the hands when done properly). The Queen of England is untouchable-in many situations, literally so. Since this was during a posthumous award ceremony for a Polish hero of the resistance against the Nazis, one might say he couldn’t have picked a worse time for his slip.ĩ George Bush Sr. In 2012, President Barack Obama sent Polish hackles flying up when he referred to Nazi death camps in the country as “ Polish death camps,” seeming to suggest that the Polish and not the (German) Nazis were responsible for them. Incidentally, it’s not the only time a US president’s words-whether through mistranslation or by direct quote-have led to a diplomatic contretemps in Poland. Obviously, Carter got a new interpreter for the rest of his visit. Seymour even turned Carter’s praise for the Polish constitution into words calling it an object of ridicule. He also mistranslated Carter’s words about his departure from the US into a phrase that meant that the President had abandoned his country for good. This first gaffe was bad enough, but the interpreter, Steven Seymour, wasn’t quite done. In 1977, during a visit to Poland, Carter gave a speech to express his aim to learn the Poles’ “desires for the future.” His interpreter, however, translated that phrase to a baffled Polish audience as “ I desire the Poles carnally.” That said, he’s had his troubles with translation, too. President Jimmy Carter arguably contributed a lot to the use of interpreters in politics-sign language interpreters first appeared on national TV during his acceptance of his party’s nomination, and he was also the president who signed into being the Court Interpreters Act of 1978. Featured photo credit: The Telegraph 10 Jimmy Carter’s Lust For Poland
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