Given that we are Australian, we are nothing if not creative with our expressions. To be clear to our international listeners, a translator did not actually defecate in his bed on live television. What he actually did was absolutely butcher the American Sign Language (ASL) translation of an emergency broadcast by officials in Florida after Category 5 Hurricane Irma tore through the state.
In a Rudy-like move, local lifeguard Marshall Greene came off the bench and onto national TV to warn the public about – among other things – pizza, monsters and bears. We’ll be honest though, if we were dealing with 300km/h winds, monsters would be the least of our worries.
We can’t place all the blame, or really any of it, on Greene. Officials were ‘in a pinch’ and we assume just asked ‘does anyone know sign language?’ in a packed room and just picked the lifeguard whose brother is deaf. Never mind that that’s literally the same as expecting Gordon Ramsay’s nephew to cook a Michelin-quality 10 course degustation.
Sure, maybe the officials are to blame, but in the end, we won’t remember them and their decisions. What we will remember in times of hardship are the immortal words ’20 left bear monster you be’
