IT was my youngest daughter's birthday this week. One of her gifts was a clock that came with one of those 20-page pamphlets of which one paragraph is in English and applies to the UK purchaser.

The instructions in other languages may well be better written, if only because it is unlikely that many people in China have any pretensions to speaking Portugese or Norwegian.

However, someone in the factory probably felt they could make a good fist of English, so you end up with those nearly-but-not-quite-right instructions to "Remove the hatch cover for the rear part of table clock and place inside the battery according to the necessary positive and negative signs. Then putting back the hatch".

Now we all know what that means, but it just isn't what we would say or write. Clearly the ability of a translator to convey accurately the meaning of speakers or writers can be crucial. I wonder how many wars might have been avoided in the days before sophisticated communication, had the messages from one country to another not been subject to accidental, or even occasionally malign, misinterpretation?

Even elements of the Bible have been subject to the perils of translation and re-translation, having arrived in English via translation from the original Aramaic Hebrew into Greek and sometimes also via Latin into English.

It is certainly true that the simile about camels and eyes of needles used to describe the likelihood of rich men entering the kingdom of heaven has been interpreted for generations as meaning that if you have oodles of dosh in this life, then you're up the Swanee with a fiery paddle and pustules in the next.

This radical warning has always been used by anti-capitalists to discredit the notion of wealth and profit.

However, I am informed, as a non-Aramaic speaker myself, that the single word that means "eye of a needle" in Hebrew is also used to describe a narrow gate out of a walled city. Hence, a camel could credibly squeeze through such a gap, if with some difficulty.

This leaves a less unrealistic scenario, in which rich people are not consigned to eternal damnation for reasons of their wealth alone, which must be a great relief to the more genuinely philanthropic and god-fearing of millionaires, who might otherwise feel inclined to hang on to the lot!

At the other end of the spectrum are the linguistic confusions offered by movie subtitles. I am reliably informed the following appeared beneath the action in Japanese films:

"I am damn unsatisfied to be killed in this way."

"Fatty, you with your thick face have hurt my instep."

"A normal person wouldn't steal pituitaries."

"Quiet or I'll blow your throat up."

"I'll fire aimlessly if you don't come out!"

"You daring, lousy guy."

"I got knife scars more than the number of your leg's hair!"

"This will be of fine service for you, you bag of the scum. I am sure you will not mind that I remove your manhoods and leave them out on the dessert flour for your aunts to eat."