Top five quotes by Gaddafi translators

One of the grotesqueries for which Muammar Gaddafi will be remembered was his insistence on having his words translated only by Arabic translators under his personal employment. He was known at the UN for bringing in his own French and English interpreters, explaining that he would be speaking a special dialect only they would understand.

In fact, UN staffers noted, he spoke standard Arabic. That is not to say that he was understandable. As anyone could gather who tuned into the recent speech to supporters in Tripoli, with its "greasy rats and cats," there is a special kind of torment in having to listen to the Colonel talk.

Imagine having to do it for a living.

Here's what some UN interpreters had to say, as reported by the New York Post:

5. "He’s not exactly the most lucid speaker."

4. "Sometimes he mumbles, sometimes he talks to himself."

3. "If you don’t understand what he says the first time you can get it right the second or third time."

2. "Ten minutes with Gaddifi earns you a lot of annual leave."

And the #1 quote, blurted into a live microphone in the UN General Assembly in September 2009 by one of Gaddafi's personal interpreters just before collapsing roughly 75 minutes into a rambling 96-minute speech that was supposed to take 15 minutes:

1. "I can't take it anymore!"

To call Gaddafi's speeches lunacies would be an insult to the moon. His exuberant screedifying poses the question of whether professional interpreters and translators have an obligation to convey the emotional state of the speaker--with the risk of editorializing, or courting vicarious madness--or to maintain an emotionally neutral delivery--with the risk of losing the substance and therefore accuracy.

"No matter what your personal beliefs are, you're supposed to be invisible," said Rasha Ajalyaqeen, the chief of the UN's Arabic section, speaking to CBC News. "You need to melt into the voice of the speaker. When they hear you as an interpreter, that's when you fail."