In the 1980s radio show, TV show and novel The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the Babel Fish is a tiny creature that—when inserted deep into one’s ear canal—translates any intergalactic language into your mother tongue. That’s a good thing if, like the hero Arthur Dent, your planet has just been destroyed and you’re traveling to places and meeting alien beings you didn’t know existed and need to communicate (but a bad thing if the first of those is a Vogon poet. Oh, read the books!).
