Headline editors should be slapped every time they use “Lost in Translation.” There would be much slapping and cleaner headlines.

A while back, there was an post in Transblawg that dealt with a court decision about the number of names parents can give a child in Germany. The case listed some names that were quite unusual for Germany, and I commented that in 1986, the registrar for the births of Germans overseas wouldn’t even let us register my wife’s surname as our daughter’s second (or middle) name because “it clearly was a surname.”

Germany and New Zealand are worlds apart, it seems, not only geographically. Last Friday’s L.A. Times reported on page A4 that a New Zealand judge made a 9-year old girl a ward of the court so that her name could be changed from that given her by her parents: Talula Does The Hula From Hawaii. The judge was dismayed by the trend of giving children bizarre names, and listed some that were blocked by registration officials: Fish And Chips, Yeah Detroit, Keenan Got Lucy, and Sex Fruit. Among the ones that were allowed he listed Number 16 Bus Shelter.

…this was high up on the list of reasons for our recent move.
 

…that Nick Hornby had a blog.

Anybody else think that’s funny?

From: Muttscomics.com