Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Translation Fail

I lately received an annual progress report from World Vision. These reports invariably take on an overly thankful tone that makes me uncomfortable (we chose to sponsor a child for many reasons-none of them a desire for approbation), so I usually give them a quick scan and file them away. This time my eye was caught by its opening paragraph which reads in part:

It is for me a great honour to write on behalf of your sponsored child and his community to express our heartfelt gratitude to you for your unvaluable support. (emphasis mine)

Putting aside the fact that our sponsored child is a girl, I was greatly amused. Is this a passive aggressive attempt to get us to increase our donation or an unfortunate translation glitch? I’m going with the latter. I’m sure it is my invaluable support they appreciate.
It gave me a laugh anyway.