In bed with a firm sailor
One morning my French friends asked me if I had had a good night's sleep. I nodded and added with a wide grin that the mattress is very firm. Some of them burst out laughing and some just stared at me. I then realized that I should have said matelas for 'mattress' and not matelot which means 'sailor'.
Sent by: Stephanie
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A friend of ours emerged from the supermarket with a pink face, and asked us to repeat for him the French for air bed: matelas gonflable. It turns out he had asked the checkout lady for an inflatable mistress: une maîtresse à air.
Reminds me of Gerard Hoffnung's great mistranslation from French to English describing a hotel as: "there is a French widow in every bedroom, affording delightful prospects" (widow/window).
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I made a similar mistake but in German! I was writing an e-mail to my Austrian cousin as we were going to stay with her even though her house was in a bit of a state as she'd been having building work done. I told her not to worry about where we slept as I would be quite happy to sleep on a Matrose on the floor. Luckily I wasn't 100% sure of my translation and checked my dictionary. Matrose means 'sailor' and the word I needed for mattress was Matratze. I later told my cousin of this near mistake and she laughed and thought maybe my mistake would have been the better option!
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