Not a John Holmes Biography

I thought that the distinction of The Worst Translation of an English Book Title into German would forever belong to the person that had the splendid idea to translate Sense and Sensibility as Sinn und Sinnlichkeit. The latter's most obvious translation back into English would be Meaning and Sensuality. Other back-translations would also be possible, but an argument about that would presuppose an idea about what the person responsible had in mind when he or she came up with that one. Other than sound, I mean.

But I have now learned that the German publishers of Chris Anderson's The Long Tail had the good sense to keep the original title and add, as a literal German translation, Der lange Schwanz (as well as two additional subtitles). That translation is not, strictly speaking, wrong, but at least in the general readers that the book is aimed at it is bound to conjure up the image of the gentleman I mention in this post's title.

If we broaden the competition to any medium, however, that prize is still held by the German distributors of the film Mo' Money.