Irritating Incongruent Translations of Fruit Names in Literature

Jules Verne: Around the World in Eighty Days (1994 Penguin Popular Classics)
Revised and updated translation by Jacqueline Rogers

page 106.

"Passepartout, who had been purchasing several dozen mangoes-- a fruit as large as good-sized apples, of a dark-brown colour outside and a bright red within, and whose white pulp, melting in the mouth, affords gourmands a delicious sensation--was waiting for them on deck. He was only too glad to offer some mangoes to Aouda, who thanked him very gracefully for them."

The Children's Classics edition by Parragon is just as bad if not worse!


Did Verne really mistaken mangosteens for mangoes?
No, he didn't! It is just a careless,ignorant translation.


The original French is correct!

"Le brave garçon avait achaté quelques douzaines de mangoustes, grosses comme des pommes moyennes, d'un brun foncé au-dehors, d'un rouge éclatant au-dedans, et dont le fruit blanc, en fondant entre les lèvres, procure aux vrais gourmets une jouissance sans pareille."
(J.Verne, le Tour du monde en 80 jours, p. 138.)

In French mango is mangue and mangosteen is mangouste.
Translators whose French is obviously not fluent should consult their dictionaries!

http://frank-malaysianfruits.blogspot.com/2010/07/irritating-incongruent-translations-of.html