Google Translate is Fun

     In Spanish class, our teacher taught us an amusing little song. It goes like this:

En la ca-lle-le veinticuatro-tro 
Ha habido-do asesinato-to.
Una vieja-ja mato un gato-to 
Con la punta-ta de un zapato-to.
Pobre vieja-ja, pobre gato-to, 
Pobre punta-ta del zapato-to. 

At first, we enjoyed innocently singing this horribly gay-sounding tune. Then, after a while, one of the smarter children in our class inquired to what this actually meant. As none of us have actually learned anything, having instead opted to learn through singing horribly gay-sounding tunes, no one could answer this question.

So, being small minded people with short attention spans, we abandoned that track entirely.

But then I got curious. I know almost no Spanish and did not intend to learn it, so I decided to use the international form of communicating with those fluent in another language: Google Translate. My curiosity was enhanced when the resulting words were very hard to understand. But I got the jist of it. Have you ever heard the expression: curiosity killed the cat? Guess what the song was about?

If you guessed "an old lady in the street kills a cat with the tip of her shoe," then you would be correct. There was also something to do with the number twenty four. Maybe she was on twenty-fourth street. Or has killed twenty four cats.

Here is the actual translation:

Street has been twenty four murder one travels kill a cat with the tip of a shoe poor poor poor old toe-cat

It leaves a lot to be explained.

Anyway, as you can see, there is nothing about an old woman, but I know it involved one because that was the only elaboration my Spanish teacher would make when I showed her this disturbing translation of her little song.


UPDATE: It is definitely 24th street