Hey, What Did I Do Wrong?
Hey, What Did I Do Wrong?

Hey, What Did I Do Wrong?

That seems to be what this poor, old vintage bass is thinking—if inanimate objects could think that is—as it sits abandoned by the side of a building in Italy.

   sax abbasc au meur

     Photography by: yakanama  Source: Flickr

If you’re looking for the title to give you a clue what the photographer was thinking, good luck with that. I ran the words sax abbasc au meur, through every translation program I could find, and didn’t come up with anything that made sense. Anyone have any ideas?

As far as the bass saxophone is concerned, I haven’t seen one like it before. It is obviously extremely old. It is keyed only to low B; has no rollers; and no pearls. I have no idea what brand it might be. Unfortunately this is the largest photo that yakanama uploaded to Flickr, so it’s impossible to make out any engraving it might have, or any other details.

The plating on the old Evette & Schaeffer horns is really good, so I would find it hard to believe that it could have worn this badly. I’m not familiar at all with Kohlert bass saxophones, nor with Orsi basses that would be this old.

In any event, this is a great shot, and since this old timer is well worn, I can only assume that it didn’t have to look forlorn very long. I’m sure its owner was keeping a watchful eye on it through the entire photo shoot.

4 Comments

  1. Well, you have options in French: “[So, that’s what happened] to that murderous bass sax.” If you assume the poster put in an extra “ab,” that is. If you want to go a bit freer, assume that a couple letters are transposed and just go with, “The murderous bass sax.”

    There’s an alternate translation, if you assume the poster garbled a word: “Bass sax against the wall.” “Meur” (murderous) is transposed with “mur” (wall). It’s probably this, although I prefer, “The murderous bass sax.” :devil2:

    In any event, a demonstration on how not using proper spelling can really confuse translation software.

    1. I like the “murderous” bass sax as well, but hey, I’m a bit twisted. 😈

      Yes, fun with translation programs. I recently found a great site for German. It’s really much more than translation though. I found it by accident as I was looking for a way to translate some of the German legalese that I was sent by an attorney via my uncle. This is regarding some of my mom’s assets in Germany, and I couldn’t make heads or tails of it.

      English legalese is one thing, but German legalese, jeez… Don’t forget, Germans love to write long winded, normal sentences with words that are 15 to 20+ characters long. Add the legal component to it, and that’s where I get lost.

      This site I found is brilliant. It works in the area of sentence structure, tenses, etc. etc. I can email the link if you like Pete. You might find it helpful.

      It’s intended for translators who have to translate documents. I can tell you that it is very, very accurate. Unlike Google translate.

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