Love and oblivion

Tonight was the first time I’d seen McDonald’s’s “I’m lovin’ it” translated into Russian — it’s already evaporated from my memory, which means the translation wasn’t catchy enough. Until then, I thought Ronald had given up on Russian: McD paper cups had “I’m lovin’ it” in all thinkable languages, including Hebrew and Ukrainian, but not in Russian.

They didn’t have to render it literally: “Man do I hate it” would do even better. Someone — I don’t remember who except that it was a well-known master — translated Byron’s Remember Thee! Remember Thee! as “To forget you! To forget you!” (Zabyt’ tebya! Zabyt’ tebya!) — and it still worked, more or less.

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