Say What? High-Tech Messages Can Get Lost in Translation.

This is the voicemail that Dan Sheeran’s tailor recently tried to leave him: “Just wanted to let you know that your pants is already done and ready for pickup,” the tailor, in accented but clear English, said in the recording. “Ok, then you can pick up your pants at Nordstrom.”

This is the message Mr. Sheeran, a 44-year-old technology executive in the Seattle area, got instead: “Just wanted to know that your punches ordered the done in the Dipper pickup. Ok. Then you can pick up the French abortion.”

Mr. Sheeran was bewildered. “It sounded like a coded message for a drug deal,” he says.

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