English as She Is spoke

One of the worst books ever written is ‘English as She Is spoke’ which is a Portuguese-English phrasebook written by a man who did not speak English. He instead relied on a Portuguese-French phrasebook and a French-English dictionary. The reprinted version of this book now comes with a preface from Mark Twain, essentially espousing that “Nobody can add to the absurdity of this book, nobody can imitate it successfully, nobody can hope to produce its fellow; it is perfect.”