Translation error

A minor translational error caused us some slight, but amusing, embarrassment this evening.

At school in Les Champs Géraux some of the classes have been painting murales on the playground walls depicting various scenes to brighten up the school. We received in Hugh's cahier the following note:

Vous invitent au vernissage de leurs peintures murales

A quick scan of the dictionary and we translated it as 'You are invited to varnish the wall paintings'. It was obviously a coummunity varnishing party for the kids murals. So I turned up in my painting clothes after school and everyone else was dressed normally and Monsieur Le Maire was there to inaugurate the paintings. Rechecking the dictionary showed that vernissage also means 'preview' when applied to an exhibition. The dangers of literal translation are all too obvious. Never mind we still toasted the paintings.