Toddler pronounced useless

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Someone may be able to figure out how this document came into existence — Drew Hangman, "Toddler Dies after Visiting Petting Zoo of E.Coli Infection", Statesman Tribune 10/9/2015:

A Maine toddler was pronounced useless after contracting an E. coli an infection following a go to to the Oxford County Truthful. Based on a report from WMTW, the 20-month toddler Colton Guay of Poland handed away from problems associated to hemolytic uremic syndrome per week after he was admitted to the Maine Medical Middle.

My own theory is that the original English-language article was automatically harvested, automatically translated into Chinese (or maybe Bulgarian), and then automatically translated back into English and posted on a fake newspaper website, thereby turning a tragic event into a farcical muddle.

Thus "Oxford County Truthful" started out as "Oxford Fair"; "Maine Medical Middle" started out as "Maine Medical Center".

[h/t Nancy Wright]

 



14 Comments

  1. Dick Margulis said,

    October 9, 2015 @ 10:56 am

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_spinning

  2. David L said,

    October 9, 2015 @ 10:59 am

    If you visit a Petting Zoo of E. Coli Infection you can't reasonably expect to come away unscathed.

  3. FM said,

    October 9, 2015 @ 11:00 am

    Nah, just thesaurus software. "visit" -> "go to", "Fair" -> "Truthful", "passed" -> "handed", "Center" -> "Middle". Not sure about the precursor for "useless". Possibly also they automatically shuffled phrases around. The minimum to try to pretend it's not plagiarism. Nothing so sophisticated as translating into another language.

  4. DWalker said,

    October 9, 2015 @ 11:01 am

    As David L mentioned, I can't believe there is a petting zoo of E. Coli. I sure wouldn't visit such a zoo!

  5. Jon W said,

    October 9, 2015 @ 11:22 am

    A copy of the original can be found at http://www.babwnews.com/2015/10/maine-toddler-dies-from-e-coli-at-county-fair-petting-zoo/ . It reads:
    A Maine toddler was pronounced dead after contracting an E. coli infection following a visit to the Oxford County Fair. According to a report from WMTW, the 20-month-old Colton Guay of Poland passed away from complications related to hemolytic uremic syndrome a week after he was admitted to the Maine Medical Center.

  6. J. W. Brewer said,

    October 9, 2015 @ 11:22 am

    If you want E. Coli suitable for petting, may I recommend the plush-doll version? http://www.giantmicrobes.com/us/products/ecoli.html

  7. Lance said,

    October 9, 2015 @ 3:48 pm

    My favorite examples of article spinning came from a data set someone had web scraped about new mothers. There was a tie for the best failure to substitute a synonym between "one mother" becoming "a single mother", and the book title "What to Anticipate When You're Anticipating".

  8. chris said,

    October 9, 2015 @ 8:50 pm

    @Jon W: Oddly, one of the most bizarre features, the same toddler being simultaneously from Maine and from Poland, was actually in the original!

  9. ryanwc said,

    October 9, 2015 @ 10:30 pm

    @ Chris, tough to take the measure of your poker-faced delivery in text. You do know that it's in Poland, ME, right?

  10. amy said,

    October 9, 2015 @ 10:47 pm

    This thesaurus has "useless" listed under "dead":

    http://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english-thesaurus/dead

    My favourite part was "in case your youngster has a penchant for taking issues off the bottom and inspecting them along with his or her mouth"

    Is there a term for inappropriate use of a thesaurus? "Thesaurish"? I imagine some good humour could result from doing it several times…

  11. Michael said,

    October 10, 2015 @ 11:34 am

    Another article on the same website renders "brush with danger" as "comb with hazard":

    http://www.statesmantribune.com/well-sharks-are-not-all-bad-california-man-saved-by-a-shark-as-he-detects-tumor-in-the-process/4031/

  12. BlueLoom said,

    October 10, 2015 @ 1:21 pm

    Very famous road sign in Maine:

    http://news.mpbn.net/post/why-are-so-many-maine-towns-named-after-foreign-countries-and-cities

  13. Graeme said,

    October 12, 2015 @ 6:52 am

    It seems 'Drew Hangman' needs to learn to write not draw, or be left out to …

    http://www.statesmantribune.com/himalaya-bumps-into-new-species-starting-from-dracula-fish-to-snub-nosed-monkeys-to-the-lance-headed-pit-viper/3909/

    distorted from: http://www.livescience.com/52396-sneezing-monkeys-wwf-report.html

  14. Rodger C said,

    October 13, 2015 @ 8:48 am

    @BlueLoom: Let Observation, with extensive view, survey mankind for 48 miles.

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