It's a case of misspelling (and someone no doubt will be loosing a job over it)
reload in Russian is spelled as «перезагрузку»
However, the button had an inscription of «перегрузка» translated as overcharge.

I'd just used the English word since Lavrov is fluent in English.

It's a case of misspelling (and someone no doubt will be loosing a job over it)

Irony?

Is this "gag gift" diplomacy?

"Do you think we got it?"

Well, at least we were appropriately desperate in our approval-seeking.

So, JFK, LBJ, Nixon, and Reagan all work hard to make sure the Russians never start a nuclear war and the first thing Obama and Clinton do is present them with a red button and encourage them to push it?

Nice.

LOL, John:
it's just a tiny red button (and no warning labels either)

They should have given him 3 buttons, "Ctrl" "Alt" and "Delete" and told him to push all 3 at once.

My friends and I have been talking about this all day. The only conclusion we could come up with is Hillary was set up by Obama supporters at State. Nothing else makes sense.

Huh. Maybe the last guy wasn't so dumb after all, picking a gal that spoke fluent Russian.

Doesn't the State Department have fluent translators to do such things?

Yeah, but it turned out they were gay, so they were all fired in the national interest and now we just rely on Google for translating when dealing with the Russians.

Yeah, but it turned out they were gay, so they were all fired in the national interest and now we just rely on Google for translating when dealing with the Russians.

State Department employees aren't subject to military rules about this.

When KAL 007 was shot down, the DoD was unable to correctly translate the recorded communications of the Red Air Force.

A friend of mine corrected the government version -- for that nasty MSM NYT

State Department employees aren't subject to military rules about this.


I was, of course, joking.

She should have given him a set of 25 classic American movies like B Obama gave to the the British PM.

Yeah, but it turned out they were gay, so they were all fired in the national interest and now we just rely on Google for translating when dealing with the Russians.

Google gives these results for the verb form

1. вновь устанавливать [тех.]
2. вновь вставлять в оправу
3. вправлять [мед.]
4. набирать заново [полигр.]
5. включать повторно
6. укрывать имущество, добытое заведомо преступным путем
7. переустанавливать
8. укрывать преступника

Careless:
This is funny.
I've translated them (the best I could) back to english below
1. вновь устанавливать [тех.] - reinstate
2. вновь вставлять в оправу - frame insert
3. вправлять [мед.] - set (as in set in)
4. набирать заново [полигр.] - dial again
5. включать повторно - repeated turn on
6. укрывать имущество, добытое заведомо преступным путем - hide (cover up) belongings obtained via illegal ways
7. переустанавливать - rebuild/reinstate/reinstall
8. укрывать преступника - hide out a criminal

Haha

by the way, did anyone think that lawrence of arabia was an interesting choice for a DVD? (especially in the light of recent events - hint hint)

So, JFK, LBJ, Nixon, and Reagan all work hard to make sure the Russians never start a nuclear war and the first thing Obama and Clinton do is present them with a red button and encourage them to push it?

Yeah, that was my first thought, too. "Well, at least it didn't accidentally say 'launch'."

The point is that the best translators don't work for our government, then or, apparently, now.

And that should scare everyone.

Do the best at anything work for our government? I thought that was why we liked privatizing government functions.

"We worked hard to get the right Russian word." Increasingly I find the trope of "working hard" on something or other really tedious. How about accepting that working intelligently, or effectively, is a worthwhile boast? "Working hard" seems both to be an excuse for incompetence and evidence of some sort of unreflective puritanism. Hard work is not a virtue if it is incompetent or ill-directed.

I'm sure that really impressed the Russians. I hope Clinton doesn't show up for her first meeting with the Chinese with a whoopee cushion.

dearime and keypusher,

Thus are the fruits of our credentialocracy. Brown-nosers uber alles!

Cornellian:

They should have given him 3 buttons, "Ctrl" "Alt" and "Delete" and told him to push all 3 at once.

How do you do that in Linux?

I find it tough to believe the smartest woman in the world might have been setup by someone in the State dept.

well, anyway, it is the thought that counts!

Actually the Contractor put it on there after they were paid 1 MILLION DOLLARS.

Hiliary Clinton as the perfect mate for Adrian Veidt...

Now there's a guy who's not afraid to make the tough decisions.

It's not as though there is a shortage of native speakers available in this country. Whenever there is a civil war anywhere in the world we get most of the losers.


Let's fix our stupid immigration system so that it favors education and talent rather than already having a relative here, then let's encourage a few civil wars in countries full of people with post-graduate degrees in math, science and engineering.

"... then let's encourage a few civil wars in countries full of people with post-graduate degrees in math, science and engineering."

We don't have shortages of people with degrees in math, science and engineering-- we have surpluses. Why would we want to add to the surplus by bringing in more people and increasing the unemployment in these fields? Note even before our current Depression we had surpluses, now have even greater.

Go to any of the job boards and see how many ads you see for mathematicians. I know mathematicians, physicists and engineers and they are having trouble finding work. Of course if one is young (<35) and cheap you might have a better chance.

That's two pretty embarrassing gaffs with gifts in a couple of days. From NPR:

President Barack Obama's gift of a set of DVDs to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown appalled the British media, furious about the lack of traditional protocol afforded to Brown while he was in Washington.

Brian G,

Condi wouldn't have made the mistake because she 1) is is Russion/Soviet expert and 2) has better taste than to come up with something cute like that. Condi would go for something more tasteful.

What do Russian GFI outlets say on them in place of "reset" on ours?

In Soviet Russia, GFI outlet resets you

Cornellian:

They should have given him 3 buttons, "Ctrl" "Alt" and "Delete" and told him to push all 3 at once.

How do you do that in Linux?

Not as easily. In a terminal:

su - (if you want root's login shell and home directory, if not, just su)
passwd
init 6

Or you could do:

Crtl-Alt F1
root
passwd
init 6

I'm appalled at my pedantry.

it's just a tiny red button

A beautiful, shiny button; a jolly, candy-like button.

An appropos gaff.

These people are confident but dim.

neurodoc,
Russians are forgiving and amused if somebody mispronounced or mistranslate the word.
What they do not like are the idiots who are stuck in the past and think that the
force is the only shtick in diplomatic relationships, in other words they despise neoconservatives , the latest USA administration and C.Rice - the shill, who turned out to be clueless as well.

One can forgive cluelessness and still note for further use that the individual is clueless.

"Just answer me one question. Why would any administration official make fun of a prior national policy?"

Do you suppose that Hillary 'nem have never heard of "divide and conquer"? I bet the Russians have.

Cheesy is the word for that gift. Also puerile. I wish we had some grownups, somewhere ... for a brief period of time I thought H might be one.

I can't let myself think about the implications of the fact that they went to all that trouble to present something to a Russian person and it had the wrong Russian word on it.

-- init 6 --
.
Make an entry in inittab, then CtlAltDel works just like one expects, without need to login at all, let alone as root.

Hmmm. Didn't know that.

Here's the entry in inittab now:

# what to do when CTRL-ALT-DEL is pressed
ca::ctrlaltdel:/sbin/shutdown -r -t 4 now

I just put my user name in, reboot. Thanks. Live and learn.

The translation was obviously flawed.

Having worked at State and with State's Language Services Division peripherally, I'm damn sure that this translation was not a product of the Language Services' translators.

Instead, it was likely the product of a Clinton staffer, in Russia, acting on what was perceived as a cute idea. Acting under time pressure, corners were cut and we have the result before us.

State's Language Services are professional and their translators are native speakers. The major problem with them is that they take forever to get a translation just right. That's not a bad thing when it comes to things like treaties and international agreements, of course, but it's often a matter of weeks, if not months, before they satisfy themselves that things are just right.

They are incapable--because it is not their remit--of producing fast translations.

I dealt with them during the merging of the US Information Agency with State. My office at the time was responsible for providing quick and accurate translations of major speeches into various languages, including Russian, French, and Arabic. These translations had to be done within hours of the speeches' delivery for them to have any utility. Language Division was unaware that this was being done as they had proprietary interests in providing translations. When they learned of the time element, however, they gracefully backed away.

USIA's successor, the International Information Programs now within State's R Bureau, continues to provide rapid translations, but do not generally (for a variety of legitimate reasons) provide translations as the subject example... here, likely because they weren't asked.

This example truly does carry the scent of a locally produced (i.e., in Russia) great idea. As Tatyana points out, this was an error in proof reading, not utter cluelessness.

"Smart" diplomacy and a new era. Boy, that cowboy is starting to not loo so dumb.

I believe we are seeing Rahm Emanuel in action. He manipulated Hillie into leaving her power base in the US Senate and will orchestrate her departure from the Department of State, removing her from the public eye and from ever competing against Obama. Over the next six months, we'll see a number of the events that make Hillie look really bad.
Then the question will be, see knew who she was working for, didn't she see this coming?

"jccamp:

Maybe it was overload in the alternative usage, as in the vernacular: "allowing one's mouth to overload your ass."

But the State Department would never allow that to occur."

Well, that was John Bolton's usual posture.

sputnik,

Peace sucks, nobody gets rich when there is peace.

um... is that how things are in your orbit? in our world, when there is peace people in general prosper. "peace &prosperity" is not a contradiction.

Jim at FSU (mail):
Wait a second, Obama gave a gift of region one DVDs to the UK prime minister?

I've never seen any confirmation that they are region 1. People seem to assume it.

It's not all that hard to get all-region DVDs, or, for that matter, a DVD player that will play all regions.

They wanted to say "reset" and came up with "overload". Good thing they didn't come up with "reload" instead.

JNL - they don't have to reload. They just convince the Chinese to stop buying t-bills. Then it's game, set, match.

'Condi would go for something more tasteful.'

Like a cake shaped like a key?

Translation aside, it defies belief that nobody in the US chain of responsibility for getting the box into Lavrov's hands stopped and thought, "Wait, Red Button? Bad associations. Must stop this." Wikipedia (e.g.) on [Big] Red Button:

The Big Red Button means a device(s) used to launch nuclear weapons. A person in charge may be referred to as "having his/her finger on The Button."

Wondering if the failure to stop this indicates some lack of freedom in nay-saying at State.

Russians are forgiving and amused if somebody mispronounced or mistranslate the word. What they do not like are the idiots who are stuck in the past and think that the force is the only shtick in diplomatic relationships, in other words they despise neoconservatives , the latest USA administration and C.Rice - the shill, who turned out to be clueless as well.

So neoconservatives are despised by Russians because . . . neoconservatives are too similar?

Then again, there is absolutely no evidence that Russians have ever used force as a schtick, unlike those American Neo-Cons in South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

The correct word is probably 'sbros' (сброс). I found it with a little Googling, as documented here:

Clever Name to Come Later

The phrase 'push the reset button' (нажмите кнопку сброса; nazhmite knopku cbrosa) appears in on-line support docs from Apple. It may still be wrong or unidiomatic, but it's certainly not laughable.

If Hillary had spent two minutes with Google, this little episode could have been avoided -- but perhaps she has John McCain's internet skills ...

At least Hillary hasn't lost her cackle. Did you hear her when he told her she got it wrong?

Her use of the cackle could well be a winning tactic. I can see diplomats saying that they'd agree to anything as long as she promises not to unleash it again.

[Hillary is a fine person. I don't intend an ad hominem attack. I criticize the horrendous sound. A sound that coaches should have worked with her to improve.]

sputnik: Can anyone imagine the Bush administration attempting to defrost relations with Russia by making goodwill gestures?

You mean like Bush inviting Putin to the family ranch in Crawford and going before the cameras to say that he had been able to look into Vladimir's heart and knew it was a good one? Did Bush fail to live up to Putin's expectations or was it Putin who failed to live up to Bush's or both?

But...but...Hillary was suppose to have all this foreign relations experience. Yet she can't even put together a staff who understand the real dangers from diplomatic misunderstandings, even misspellings. Wars start from them.

What is up with these amateur hour mistakes. It's only been a few weeks, surely the Obamamaniacs attention span isn't that short.

The Associated Press would like Americans to believe that our representatives have no clue what they are doing. Judging from comments on the various message forums Americans are gullibly buying the simplistic explanation that our State department supposedly doesn’t know how to translate the word “reset” into Russian. Nonsense! The Russian word peregruzka appears at the top of the button, spelled in latin letters. If this was meant to be a literal translation, why would the letters be in Latin? The english translation for this word is “overload” and anyone that knows how to type a few letters into an online translation website can easily figrue that much out. An english word appears below the button and that word is “reset”. These words do very much make sense together: when something is overloaded (like a circuit), you reset it.

Continued here:
rebellionbrewery.com/?p=312

I don't know about the AP conspiracy angle, rebellion. But I love this quote from your site:

A dead ferret is all the difference between biological armageddon and just another day on planet earth.

And who in their right mind issues even "off the record" comments like ...

The official dismissed any notion of the special relationship, saying: "There's nothing special about Britain. You're just the same as the other 190 countries in the world. You shouldn't expect special treatment."

Oh my God .. the "official" should be fired. No wonder there is a flap about Limbaugh, they have to distract from stuff like this.

Is there anybody left at State who remembers proper protocol ?
... or have they all been sent to Gitmo ?

The Russians will only care about the button incident to the extent that it confirms what they already knew... we have an incompetent, weak and feckless person leading our country. While we are running around playing with toy buttons the Russians are cutting our supply routes to Afghanistan and helping the Mad Mullahs get their nuclear weapons. We won't even mention the fact that "overcharge" would have been perfectly appropriate from the perspective of the type of extortion the Russians engage in with their energy policies.

But what era in Russian-American relations is this supposed to reset to? Perhaps about 110 years ago when Secretary of State Seward bought Alaska from the Czar? Could Siberia be for sale now? Unfortunately, with Hillary and Obama, I think it more likely that they'd sell Alaska back...

Wow -- what impresses me is the degree of unity the Russians seem to have.

Its easy when dissenters are gunned down in the street.

After looking at the picture of the yellow box with the button I think that it is Clinton who got it all wrong and started the confusion.
The box has two words, "peregruzka" and "reset", but none is intended as a translation for the other. The word on top, peregruzka, describes a condition or a state when the button should be pressed while the word below the button is a description of the action initiated by pressing the button.
Considering that current US-Russia relationship is overloaded with hostility and suspicions, an overload device with a reset button makes sense.
Well, count it as another gaffe fully manufactured and executed by Clinton.