There is nothing that can trip you up as much as trying to speak in a foreign language.

One of my own biggest gaffes was the time, as a student in France, I was given an assignment to translate a story from Time Magazine for homework. The article was about kissing customs – which cultures kiss, which prefer handshakes, whether those that kiss do so in airports or in private and how many times on each cheek.

Instead of working on the assignment I was reading Cyrano de Bergerac, a play written in 19th century French. People also talk a lot about kissing in Cyrano, so when the time came to hand in the assignment, I just used the vocabulary I’d picked up from the play. The only problem was that the verb for “to kiss” in the 19th century was “baiser”. In the 20th century that verb had come to mean **cking. So I had brilliantly translated the Time story into a treatise on **cking customs of different cultures – which ones **cked in airports, which ones did not **ck at all, and which ones **cked several times. On each cheek.

It was actually very funny, but I obviously failed the assignment and it did teach me to always double-check the meaning of my words when translating or speaking.

It’s a lesson that Senator Obama could learn.

For the nth time in this campaign, Obama has made a huge translation error. He spoke about bitter people in Pennsylvania turning to guns, God and antipathy. Then he said he misspoke: http://weblogs.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/blog/2008/04/obamas_bitter_taste_of_own_wor.html .

Obama plagiarized speeches from Deval Patrick and the movie script of “Malcom X” . Then he said oops, he should have attributed those words: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ilx3R9r7Soo&feature=related.

Obama took a pledge a year ago to limit his spending cap by taking public funds during the general election and is now refusing to re-affirm that promise: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/15/us/politics/15finance.html?ei=5070&en=492c3dbfed53df15&ex=1203742800&adxnnl=1&emc=eta1&adxnnlx=1203091006-ML9n5OvAt4/Nnrnhw2hgow.

Obama said he doesn’t take money from PAC’s but he has taken money from employees of federal lobbying firms, from family members of the same and also from State Lobbyists: (http://www.capitaleye.org/inside.asp?ID=332).

Obama said he was never in the pews when Reverend Wright made his damning statements – and then said you cannot walk out on your minister any more than you can walk out on your family: http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/03/18/obama.transcript .

Obama said that he came out against the war in Iraq in his famous speech in Chicago, but he never came right out and said “I am opposed to the war in Iraq”. He said he was opposed to dumb wars but he also said he thought the world would be a better place without Saddam Hussein: http://usliberals.about.com/od/extraordinaryspeeches/a/Obama2002War.htm .

Obama said he doesn’t take money from the energy companies but he has accepted more than $200,000 from people who work in the oil industry and two of his top campaign people are oil execs: http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/obamas_oil_spill.html .

Obama said he didn’t know Rezco all that well – until Rezco’s indictment revealed otherwise: http://www.suntimes.com/news/watchdogs/757340,CST-NWS-watchdog24.article .

Obama said he is for changing the way business is done in Washington but his political action group, HOPE, has given close to $700,000 to various super delegates, including 34 who have declared for him. (http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/14/wooing-with-charm-and-pacs/?ex=1203742800&en=0b70cc6e82437d8a&ei=5070&emc=eta1).

Obama said words are important, but he seems to be speaking another language. And to paraphrase Cyrano, we’re the ones getting….”kissed”.