Great moments in translation

One of the interesting phenomena I was able to observe on my visit involves the long march of Politika back to respectability and its historic position as the premier newspaper in the area. Last Monday, they initiated a strategy of reputation-by-association, running a special additional section (in English) of articles selected from Sunday's New York Times. It's a nice section, and undoubtedly useful both to people who want a glimpse at international media and to people wanting to keep their English language skills in shape. In the interest of achieving that second goal, the section contains a box at the bottom of the second page, prepared by the Institut za strane jezike, with translations of some rare or new English expressions. A very nice idea altogether. The first item in their little glossary was:

butt brushes -- sudaranje kupaca u suviše uskom prostoru

I never knew this! Nor did my students. But I like it.