Pedro Carolino

Biography

Pedro Carolino (fl. 1855–1883) was a Portuguese author best known for English as She Is Spoke (1883), one of the most famously bad phrase books ever published and an enduring classic of unintentional comedy. Almost nothing is known about Carolino’s life beyond his authorship of this work. The original Portuguese-to-English phrase book, titled O Novo Guia da Conversação em Português e Inglês, was published in 1855. Carolino apparently spoke no English whatsoever and created his "translations" by using a Portuguese-to-French dictionary and then a French-to-English dictionary, producing hilariously garbled results. The book was co-credited to José da Fonseca, who had previously published a legitimate Portuguese-French phrase book that Carolino used as his starting point. When the English translation was republished in 1883 with an introduction by Mark Twain, who called it "the most fascinating book of humor ever written," it became an international curiosity. The book’s mangled English has delighted readers for over a century.