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LoL! About 33 years ago, travelling through Nagano Prefecture, there were signs in various places claiming that "Takeda Shingen had done a stool here." I must have come across 4 or 5 sites in a week claiming this. I began to suspect he had loose bowels or some health problem few were privy to... (pun intended). Shingen had apparently invented a flush toilet system, and I was beginning to understand why. Anyway, it wasn't until years later when early and basic versions of translation software came out and I was playing with it and was test translating a piece on Nobunaga setting up a war camp when I realised the problem. Shogiba, an old term for setting up ones command post, was coming out as "doing a stool". What the Nagano Prefecture translator and the system soft was doing was mis-translating Shogi, a folding stool, and Ba, or place as "a place to do stool". The places I'd been to weren't where Shingen had taken a dump, but where he had set up a war camp!

Aug 2
at
8:17 AM
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