NPR ran a fascinating (well, to us wordy types here) piece last night on the ongoing struggle of the foreign press to translate Bush's down-home expressions. Most have all but given up on the baseball metaphors, but the latest phrase, "darned good intelligence," couldn't be left out of a news story. How'd they do?

http://www.npr.org/display_pages/features/feature_1337949.html

The above is a link to the audio file; transcripts cost money. Despite the old maxim, the Italians did the best on the translation, as I think y'all'll agree.

Another phrase which Dubya has used from time to time is "Bring it on!" Guy from Al-Jazeera said there were plenty of expressions to translate it, but they varied from country to country. I guess Egypt's "We will crush the infidels!" might well be Morocco's "Your mother wears army boots!" Since the agency serves the entire Arabic-speaking world, they pretty much have to stick to classical Arabic, he said. [/not a politics post]