Yeah, and I was thinking the same might go for the chicken biting. On the one hand, would John and Rodney feel it necessary to be oblique there? But would the gate translator go with a definition so different from the meaning?

Huh. Now I'm leaning the other way, John getting in the spirit of the thing and Rodney keeping his phrasing, because otherwise the gate translator is nonsensically prescriptivist such that it would significantly obstruct communication.