Someone's definitely getting fired over this: a snafu by the BBC led to a worldwide outcry of controversy as a subtitle error ushered in the year of the "whores," as opposed to the Year of the Horse.

The phonetic error, according to Metro, came at around 6:55 p.m. on Jan. 31, when the announcer said: "Welcome to the year of the horse -- people all around the world celebrate!" Unfortunately, the teleprompter wrote "welcome to the year of the whores -- people all around the world celebrate!"

Almost immediately, BBC watchers took to Twitter to express their humor about the snafu. "So it's Chinese New Year, but the BBC subtitles got a bit confused about the year," said one person on Twitter. Another added: "Happy Chinese New Year, according to BBC Subtitles it should be an interesting one!"

Unfortunately, not everyone was in as good of humor as BBC viewers, and a few people got all up in arms about the snafu. However, according to The Ireland Independent, this isn't the first time that the BBC teleprompter chopped and screwed the translations: the Archbishop of Canterbury has been referred to as "The Arch Bitch" of Canterbury, and the Queen Mother's funeral called for "a moment of violence" by the teleprompter. (Buckingham Palace never really issued a comment about either instance...)

So have you ever wondered what, exactly, the Year of the HORSE (there it is...) means for you? Well, the Shengxiao (which literally means "birth likeness") relates each year to a specific animal. This form of astrology is popular in China, Vietnam, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan. Unlike "English" astrology, which assigns a particular animal to a MONTH, Chinese astrology assigns an animal to a YEAR. This is, of course, the year of the Horse. However, the Chinese astrological symbols go a bit deeper than just assigning an animal to a year: it is a common misconception that the animals assigned by year are the only signs and many western descriptions of Chinese astrology draw solely on this system. In fact, there are also animal signs assigned by month (called inner animals), by day (called true animals) and hours (called secret animals). For example, while a person might appear to be a Dragon because they were born in the year of the Dragon, they might also be a Snake internally, an Ox truly, and a Goat secretively.

What's your Chinese horoscope animal?