When grade school kids think someone lied to them they say, "Liar, liar pants on fire!"
My son’s high school friend told me today that if you put "Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire" into an online translator, then translate it into French, and then translate back again into English, the resulting translation is, "Teller of untruths your pants have combusted".
This phrase is all over the internet. I had to know if it really works this way or if it’s an urban legend. When I checked to see what happens, here’s what I got:
Yahoo Translator
French Translation: Pantalon de menteur de menteur sur le feu
The French translated back to English: Trousers of liar of liar on fire
Google Translator
French Translation: Pantalons menteur Menteur sur le feu
The French translated back to English: Liar liar pants on fire (someone must have contributed this translation.)
Reverso
French Translation: Pantalons de menteur de menteur en feu
The French translated back to English: Liar’s pants of liar on fire
This is the type of result I get when I went through the translation in online translators. Sometimes it didn’t make sense, sometimes the original version came back. I never got, "Teller of untruths, your pants have combusted". It may be that translators have improved, that the people behind the translators fixed it or that the whole thing was made up, posted on a blog and then spread around, finally becoming an urban legend.
Perhaps someone out there on the internet is a teller of untruths whose pants have combusted!
Photo Credit: Facebook Group Teller of Untruths Your Pants Have Combusted
This article was posted on Friday, October 1st, 2010 at 4:21 pm and is filed under English, Languages, Liar, Liar Pants on Fire, Words & Phrases. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
4 Responses to “Teller of Untruths, Your Pants Have Combusted”
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October 8th, 2010 at 7:15 pm
my own translation would be :
menteur, menteur, ton pantalon brûle
October 8th, 2010 at 8:10 pm
Thanks! Do you have an expression like this one?
October 9th, 2010 at 1:38 pm
We sometimes say “Ton nez s’allonge” or “Tu as le nez qui s’allonge” (both meaning “Your nose is stretching/getting longer”) in reference to Pinocchio whose nose would stretch out as he was telling lies.
October 27th, 2010 at 7:46 am
Actually, when I first read a post on MLIA about it, it had it in a different language. i actually came on here hoping to figure out hte language, it wasnt french…
But when I did it a month or so ago it really did work. i actually started laughing in the middle of my class.
I just sort of was guessing around now, bu i remember it was the same origin of a cartoon character from an old show called shoalin showdown (bare with me that is probably spelled wrong)