Zwei Seelen wohnen, ach, in meiner Brust

Various translations of this quote online:

Two souls dwell, alas! in my breast
Two souls, alas! reside within my breast.
Two souls, alas, are housed within my breast.
Two souls, alas, are dwelling in my breast.
Two souls, alas! are lodg'd within my breast.

Damn squatters. Faust should have charged both souls rent. It's not like the space is free or anything.

Imparting Pearls Of Utter Foolishness

After slogging through 250 pages of why ISDN H-channels are not the same as N x 64 channels, my brain, like a recalcitrant pony, is balking at the sheer thought of reading another page. It's not the best behaved brain in the world, mind you. After 250 pages, it always balks. It's like clockwork. I've tried caressing it, feeding it tasty oats and taking it for a trot in the morning, but right now it looks a little fagged. Maybe I should put it out to pasture.

However, I have learned some valuable lessons from reading Telecommunications: A Beginner's Guide, which I would like to share with you, dear reader.

1. There is a reason why Cisco's marketing materials sound like they were written by an army of monkeys on crack. Because they were.
2. These are probably the same goddamn monkeys who invented English pronunciation rules, or rather the lack thereof.
3. Switches are essentially modern-day witchcraft, and anyone who understands them has probably sold his soul to the devil.
4. This joke is still not funny:
   Q: What did the data terminal equipment say to the data circuit terminating equipment?
   A: 10101001110001010010100100100101000100111!
5. All work and no play makes Trench an unspeakably dull boy.
6. When I'm reading this bilge, I can't get no inspiration. But I try. And I try. And I try. And I try.
7. The next textbook I read will have pictures, color-by-numbers and crossword puzzles. You know, something like "Pokémon Visits the Polymer Processing Plant".
8. Whoever wrote the ISDN chapter is guilty of committing acts of gross boredom and should be boiled in oil. Feet-first.
9. Advanced Intelligent Networks are pretty cool, actually.
10. I used to say that the best thing about being a translator was the fact that you were constantly learning. Now, I think it's a toss-up between learning and writing. God, I missed blogging.

My Scheduler

Since there are no project management applications just for freelance translators, I'’ve had to set up my own as an Excel table. It consists of three parts:

1. A calendar (Columns A-H)
   
2. A speed calculator (Columns I and J)
   
3. A notes section (Columns K-ZZZ)
   

The calendar section turns blue when you enter a number in it. Take B21, for example. I have a job that I want to finish on Monday by 6 p.m. So I enter 209 lines (the number of lines for the job) and set aside the next hour for proofreading. The job propagates up through the table until it reaches zero.

It also warns you if you have a scheduling conflict. In E23, I'’ve inserted a job, but it overlaps with the next job down. I’'ll have to fix this later.

The Lines and Speed columns tell me if I'’m translating fast enough to make my deadlines. In the calendar, my target rate is 20 lines per half-hour. In the speed column, I've set down 25 lines per half hour. The extra 5 lines per half-hour is my planning slack.

In this case, I translated fast enough from 11:00 to 11:30, but was a little slow from 11:30 to 12:30. I did fine from 2:00 to 2:30, but I obviously was distracted or really slow from 2:30 to 3:00.

The Notes section begins at column K. I use a formula to calculate the number of lines I have left based on a character count. I also enter any pending quotes so I don'’t book time I'’ve agreed to reserve provisionally for another client.

Warning:
You can't drag and drop cells or move entire columns back and forth because of the scheduling conflict formula I had to use. Other than that, this little spreadsheet does almost everything I want.


My Schedule

If you're interested in using it for yourself, e-mail me your Yahoo address. I've got it in my Briefcase, but I need a Yahoo handle to share it. If you're in a rush, just add a comment telling me you've sent me an e-mail. I'll be sure to check my e-mail then.

Driving Myself Crazy

I have a theory that alongside the drive for sex, recognition and companionship, everyone has a built-in, plug ‘'n play linguistic drive. I know I do. The only problem is that my linguistic drive seems to have two gears: intake and output. Right now, I'm absorbing a book on telecommunications. My brain is so focused on Media Access Control addresses and synchronous payload envelopes that it’'s uninterested in producing anything creative.

Don'’t laugh -– I'’m serious. My wife thinks I'’m nuts for actually enjoying this stuff, but what can I say? The moment I stop learning at my job is the moment I'’ll give it up and drive a cab for a living.

Just so you get an idea of what I mean by absorb, here's a book page before I mark it up:


In all its naked glory

And here's one after I mark it up:


Pretty, ain't it?

Sense Of Humor, Anyone? - Part 2

ProZ has a funnybone!

Sense Of Humor, Anyone?

While it doesn't even come near the weapons of mass lawyer humor stockpiled around the 'net, I did find a page devoted to translation jokes. Here's my current favorite:

Translator gets 400 words to translate.
Client : How long will it take?
Translator : About a week.
Client : A whole week for just 400 words? God created the world in 6 days.
Translator : Then just take a look at this world and afterwards take a look at my translation.

Bigwig Bitching

Might just be the world's greatest translation for "Jammern auf hohem Niveau"*.

I dare you to use it. No, I double-dog dare you. No, you first. No, you first.

___
* Literally "Complaining at a high level." Means that high-powered politicians and executives in Germany are running around complaining that the sky is falling and it's everyone else's fault but theirs.
___

Update: I was wrong, obviously. All it means is that people are complaining before they really need to. sigh Sometimes I think I'm never going to learn German.

Tongue-Tied? Try This Trick.

Let's say you have the tagline "Unlocking Value Through Integrated Supply Chains". Okay, this may not seem like a tough nut to crack, but try coming up with something snappy. It's harder than you might think. So what do I normally do?

First, I try coming up the basic concept (or proposition, if you want to split hairs). So I might write “We Interconnect All Your Logistics Operations So You Don’t Have To And Can Make More Money In Your Core Business.”

It’s not snappy. It’s not supposed to be. It just gives me a starting point in English. By absorbing the ideas, I spend less time trying to translate the word "unlock” and more time developing a native-sounding solution. Once I've gotten the basic concept down, often the ideas really start flowing. And the best thing is that these ideas sound American.

If that doesn’t work, I often start having fun with (or maybe making fun of) the tagline. Bear with me here. I may write, “We Want To Take Over Your Company. We Totally Rock And Everyone Else Sucks. We Will Send Your Stuff To, Like China And Stuff."

I’m not disrespecting the tagline. All I’m doing is reasserting my personality so I can write something creative and express an idea that I’ve thought. This is really good if I’m working on a high-pressure job for a high-profile client. I let off a little steam and realize, hey, it’s just another job. And haven’t I done plenty of these before? And wasn’t I happy with the results?

One last thing: I always write out my ideas. They won’t do any good in my head. I have to see it black on white, right next to the real text. Only then will these two techniques work their magic.

Let me know if you try them out - and if they work!

Stop Me If You've Heard This One Before...

The Naked Translator stole my scoop today, but the story is so important that it deserves double billing.

Here's a selective quote from the BBC article:

Booker Prize to award translators

A new award honouring translators has been announced by the organisers of the international Booker Prize.

Chairman of the international Booker judging panel John Carey said: "We became increasingly aware of the huge role translators play in making first-rate fiction accessible to a global audience".

Is this just another prize? Hardly. The Booker Prize is hands down the best literary prize in the English language. The Nobel Prize is highly politicized. The Pulitzer is vanilla mainstream. But the Booker? It’s take-no-prisoners innovative. Last year’s winner was excellent, if a bit straightlaced. The also-ran Cloud Atlas, however, is the literary equivalent of a brain transplant: you never see the world the same way again.

Now take that cutting-edge approach and apply it to translation. Beautiful. I can’t wait. I really can’t.

Murphy: 4, Trench: 0

My website: down.
My computer: not working.
My new webhoster: incompetent.
My expensive bicycle: hit by a truck.

Tell Murphy that the next time I see him we're gonna throw down. I'm not taking this anymore.

It's A Bitch, Then You Die

Life. n. What gets between you and blogging.

I will resume posting once the Blogging Gods are with me again. Right now, they're hurling fire and brimstone down.

Update:
Actually the Blogging Gods are with me. Not that it helps much. As divinities go, they're 98-pound weaklings, so the other gods keep kicking their asses all over Paradise. Wimps.

David Berkowitz, Eat Your Heart Out

I'm not dead; not kidnapped. I'm just doing a big rush job right now. I'll go back to real posts tomorrow.

If you're a big Son of Sam - er - fan, you'll love this:

Son of Boss is the government’s name for a very technical, multi-step tax shelter “transaction” that was heavily marketed to high-wealth individuals, allowing them the opportunity to generate tax losses without incurring substantial economic risks or real economic losses. Son of Boss deals typically utilized a combination of the technical tax laws applicable to securities dealers, currency options, partnerships and partnership interests to inflate the basis in a foreign currency investment, which would then be sold at a large loss.

The techniques used to carry out Son of Boss deals were formally identified as abusive “listed transactions” by the Service in 1999, and again in 2000. However, these deals continued to be marketed and sold to taxpayers in 1999-2001, and beyond.

The Service discovered the widespread marketing of these transactions and filed lawsuits to obtain memoranda and investor lists from firms whose clients had engaged in Son of Boss deals. Moreover, the Service, in conjunction with the United States Department of Justice and State prosecutors, has conducted criminal investigations related to the promotion of Son of Boss shelters.

As these civil and criminal matters proceed, many of the taxpayers who “bought” the Son of Boss deals have joined in large civil lawsuits against entities involved in the sale of the shelters. Although at least one major taxpayer initiated has been settled by the law firm accused of fraud, civil law suits – along with criminal investigations – are likely to remain unresolved for years. Based on the significant dollars at issue, it appears that the Son of Boss will not be quickly laid to rest.

And:

"Son of Boss" is a spinoff of another tax shelter known as "BOSS," an acronym for Bond and Option Sales Strategy.

Things That Make Me Say Huh?

Today's TaxProfBlog said:

The new withholding guidelines are applicable when an employer has sufficient New York nexus.

Nexus: "A seller's minimum level of physical presence within a state that permits the taxing authority to require the seller to register, collect and remit sales/use tax and comply with the Country's, Province's, State's and/or County's taxing statutes and regulations."

We Are The Champions

I'm gnawing my way through excruciatingly witty ad copy today. To get through some of the bumpier spots, I've been checking out the U.S. competitors. Suddenly, I realized a big difference between U.S. and German slogans that had always bothered me on a subconscious level.

All-American slogan: "Satisfying customers for 30 years!"
Typisch deutscher Werbespruch: "Mit Erfolg seit 30 Jahren!"*

Is it just me, or do German companies come off sounding like jerks?


*"Successful for 30 years!"

Buckling Under...

Lots of work today - and more to come this weekend. But here's something to tide you over: an interesting article on managing international transactions by a Canadian lawyer. You have to register to view the article, but it doesn't take long.

He says this about language and cultural issues:

This is sometimes the biggest hurdle to overcome in an international transaction. During intense negotiations, one group may break into a foreign language, which leads the other party to suspect devious actions and bad faith. Cultural differences can often produce similar concerns: one side invites the other to join it for social activities during the negotiation process, whereas the other party prefers to remain alone. The problem is that by refusing the invitation, the party extending the invitation views the refusal as a supreme insult.

Beneath The Buzz: ITIL

CIO Magazine rips into the myth that the IT Infrastructure Library is a cure-all in this article.

The comments are interesting, too.

Actually, the entire Beneath The Buzz column is interesting. Too bad I can't say that about the rest of the magazine, which is essentially a series of advertorials.

Update: Just found a nice introduction to ITIL.

Why I Love This Job

Yesterday's topics: pens, pizza and mascara

Today's topics: money laundering

Not one second of boredom here! Well, maybe one second. Or two. But no more than two seconds of boredom!

TPB Opens A Can Of Whoop-Ass On CPAJ

The February 2005 issue of CPA Journal has an article on IRC section 509(a)(3) supporting organizations:

Supporting organizations can be used by anyone in the high-income tax bracket who wishes to retain control of assets within the family. They can receive a 50% adjusted gross income (AGI) deduction for removing the asset ownership from their estate, yet maintain virtually the same control they had as fee-simple owners.

Hmmm. A tax shelter. Hmmm. We-e-e-lllll, it's gotta be kosher, right? I mean, it's in the Internal Revenue Code and all.

Imagine my surprise, then, when I read yesterday in TaxProfBlog about

reforms to stop the use of 'supporting organizations' for generous tax breaks rather than charitable purposes.

For the record, CPA Journal had put that article in its "Essentials" section.

Source Or Target? Yin Or Yang? Death Or Hell On Earth?

In locker rooms, guys talk a lot about whether they're a "butt and legs man" or a "boobs man". In fact, that's pretty much all they talk about in locker rooms. Translation is a lot like locker rooms, except there's less risk you'll get thwacked on the ass with a wet towel in the shower.

I, myself, am a target man. Nothing floats my boat better than a sweet, juicy target text that reads, feels and sounds like the author has never been farther upstate than Bowling Green, Kentucky, let alone Germany. I hadn't done any stick-to-source* texts in so long, I had forgotten what it was like.

Until, that is, I got some standard contract terms that shriveled up my translation libido faster than a naked picture of Rush Limbaugh. For me, it was the translation equivalent of getting thwacked with a wet towel. Really hard.


Real men thwack (and translate) to the death.

*Stick-to-source: adj. Refers to texts that - c'mon, this is a humor post. Do I really gotta get into theory here? Just roll with it. Believe me, it will make it a lot funnier.

The Hired Guns Weigh In

To Whom It May Concern:

It has come to our attention that the operator of the website trenchtranslation.blogspot.com (hereinafter "the Website") has made numerous disparaging, hateful and defamatory comments regarding the World Association of Lexicographers (hereinafter "Harmless Drudges").

We hereby demand that you cease and desist from mounting any such groundless attacks against Harmless Drudges on the Website until such time as we have looked up the exact definitions of "trenchant" and "blog", and have made a determination as to whether it means "cash in the bank for us".

Yours faithfully,

Lex Luther, Esq.
Attorney-At-Law

Fischer On Phoenix

If you've been following the visa affair in Germany, Joschka Fischer is defending his position live on Phoenix right now.

Here's the link. Click on the red Live Stream button, sit back and enjoy. Have a brewski, get your chips and dip. Invite your friends over. It's like the Superbowl! Maybe Joschka will also have a wardrobe malfunction? Oh, the suspense!

Let's Play Guess The Reference!

This one goes out to all the translators in Annual Report Land:

April is the cruellest month, breeding
Profits out of the dead land, mixing
Targets and desire, stirring
Dull hopes with earnings forecasts.
Winter kept us warm, nurturing
Indexes with measured hikes, feeding
A little life with warmed-up forecasts.
The 200-point index plunge surprised us, coming over Wall Street
With a shower of gloom; we stopped in Fifth Avenue,
And went on in the sunlight, into Starbucks,
And drank coffee, and day-traded for an hour.

In A Bookstore: Vol. 4

Clerk (turning to Other Clerk): Remind me again: why am I doing this job?

Other Clerk: Because you hate translating.

Clerk: Oh, yeah. Right. (Picks up a broom and starts sweeping behind the counter. Soon, he begins whistling cheerfully)

In A Bookstore: Vol. 3

Clerk: Dictionaries 'R Us, Buddy speaking, how may I help you?

Translator: You RIP-OFF BASTARDS! I bought this CD, this, whatchamacallit, Eichborn. And now I can only use it on one PC?

Clerk: I'm sorry sir, if there are any restrictions they're not ours. We just sell the dictionaries.

Translator: 500 euros.

Clerk: Excuse me?

Translator: 500 euros is what I paid for this piece of crap. Now I gotta buy a new one if I upgrade my PC. You BASTARDS! I HOPE-

Clerk: (hangs up)

Standard Contract Terms Link

This is an interesting article on the conscionability of standard contract terms. He mentions U.S., French, German and South African contract terms. Under the reasonable expectations test of the Uniform Commercial Code

the clarity and conspicuousness of [a possibly inconsciable] term ... [are] considerations in determining knowledge of the weaker party.

Is that why U.S. standard contract terms for consumers list certain sections in caps? Do they honestly think it's easier to read?

In A Bookstore: Vol. 2

Clerk: Dictionaries 'R Us, Buddy speaking, how may I help you?

Translator: Hi, I was wondering if you could tell me how to say "property, plant and equipment" in Bengali.

Clerk: Sorry, ma'am. We can't give out that information. You have to buy a dictionary and look it up for yourself.

Translator: C'mon, I'm in a real bind here!

Clerk: Sorry, ma'am. Company policy.

Translator: Well, thanks for nothing! Bye! (hangs up)

Belle Strikes Again

Belle de Jour blitzes her readers once again. Don't walk, run to her latest post. On the menu today: the Italian translation and the U.S. edits.

In A Bookstore: Vol. 1

Clerk: Dictionaries 'R Us, Buddy speaking, how may I help you?

Translator: Got Finnish dictionaries on trout?

Clerk: Trout?

Translator: Yeah. Trout. You know, the fish? Got any?

Clerk: Let's see... just trout, or river-dwelling fish in general?

Translator: Well, I'd prefer a dictionary on the migration patterns of trout in the Yukon, but at this point, I'd settle for anything on trout.

Clerk: I'm sorry - the best I can do is "The Language of Salmonology" in Hungarian.

Translator: I'll take it! Don't let anyone else buy it. I'll be right there!

Clerk: Righty-O. (hangs up)

My Reward For A Graveyard Shift

In my inbox this morning:

"Dear Mr. Warrior,

Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!

What would I do without you?

I'm off to XYZ now with my 'perfect' text."

What more could you ask for?

The Conversation Pit

Today's topic:
If language were a cell, what organelle would the translator be?

Talk amongst yourselves.


Want some protoplasm with that?

It's 3 AM. Do You Know Where Your Translator Is?

It's 11 at night, and I'm still not done. I'm not a night owl. But in a week when clients are jamming jobs down my gullet faster than I can chew, I'm lucky to get home at all. What kills me is that they're all important. New clients, potential clients, big accounts, big deals. I can safely turn down piss-ant press releases from huge multinationals. They're so big, they never even read what they write themselves, let alone what I write. Let someone else do them.

No, it's the small businesses calling this week. And they're the apples of my eye. When they call, I burn the midnight oil, stock up on dictionaries and agonize, agonize, agonize over my translations.

Of course, none of this makes any financial sense. With the big companies, I make more money. But they don't need me. And what's the point of doing this job if you don't feel needed? Fame?

Ergomania!

I almost always have WorkPace on. When I'm swamped, it's usually paused. But most of the time it's worth the extra aggravation. Try it. You might like it. Or at least not totally hate it.


A real pain in the neck

I also rest my rear on the patented Haider Bioswing chair. Don't believe the marketing hype, though. It doesn't revolutionize sitting. It won't make you a genius. It's just a really good chair. A really ... expensive chair. You may have to sell a kidney to pay for it.


Aiighhh! Get this phone creature off my face!

Before I moved into a separate office, I sat on a used Stokke chair I bought for peanuts on eBay. It's still my favorite chair, and I wish I could use it in my new set-up. I have to move around more now, though, and I really need a chair with casters. Too bad.


Rock 'n roll!

I also use two monitors - one 15" and one 19". Unless you're working in the back seat of your Volkswagen Beetle after your landlord evicted you, I highly recommend doing the same. You can have your dictionaries (or Trados Workbench) open in one screen, and the text you're working on in another screen. It cuts down on mousing enormously.


Take us to your leader!

Service4Trans Unveils Next-Generation Bullshit Detector

NixBS 2.0 delivers crucial value-added for translation professionals

April 18, 2005 - Service4Trans, Inc., one of the leading providers of software tools for translation professionals, has just released NixBS 2.0, its much-anticipated next-generation bullshit detector for translation professionals.

The tool fills a gap in the market for a database-driven, media-rich technology that differentiates between actual fact and specious blather. Drawing on brute-force processing methods and aggressive algorithms, NixBS 2.0 helps translators identify terms in their dictionaries that are slightly, mostly or totally bullshit and instantly launches denial-of-service (DOS) attacks against the websites of the incompetent lexicographers who committed the gravest errors.

Service4Trans, Inc.'s CEO, Jeremiah Wuzza Bullfrog, explained the principle behind the tool: "Rather than populating cyberspace with bogus terminology, translators can now focus on researching terms that the lexicographer stole from another poorly researched dictionary. Obviously, we're very excited about this innovation, which puts us in a class above the competition."

Dictionary publishers Langenscheidt and Axel Springer could not be reached for comment. A spokeswoman at PONS was quoted as saying, "Yeah? Well, yo' mama, too!"

***

Service4Trans, Inc. is a Fortune 500,000,000,000,000,000 Company and one of the leading providers of software tools for translation professionals. Founded in present-day San Francisco in 1521 by a group of Aztecs fleeing the Spanish invaders, Service4Trans has been transformed into a highly advanced, warlike society that communicates with bits of brightly colored string and pictures of farm animals.

I, Robot

Many clients are positively drooling over the prospect of a machine that will replace us. I’ve had people at client companies say to my face, “Oh, you’re a translator? Huh – well, in a few years, computers will be doing your job for you!” And then – I love this – they laugh.

Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. Real funny.

Ask these people whether machines churn out their press releases, and they look at you blankly. Is their software automatically generated? A shake of the head. But their design process is fully automated, right? Well, no.

But translation, of course, is simple, right? I mean, you already have the text. You just have to, you know, transfer it to another language. It can’t be that hard, can it?

This is the point where I have to physically restrain myself from STABBING THEM THROUGH THE EAR IN THE BRAIN WITH A BIC PEN. I haven’t killed anyone so far. But keep your eye on the headlines. You never know.

The Wages Of Sin, Or: Does Sin Pay?

Knowing we are all sinners at heart, ClientSide News LLC decided to publish the most brazen whore of a translation journal I have ever seen. It is a shameless, vapid, blatant vehicle for translation vendor advertisements.

Interested? I knew you would be! Click here, and be sure to check your scruples at the door!

Buzzword Bonanza

"Low-hanging fruit"

"to go cashflow positive"

"opex spend vs. capex spend"

All this and more here...

Get Thee To A Memery!

You’re stuck inside Fahrenheit 451, which book do you want to be?

The Collected Works of Everything Ever Written, by Anonymous, et al. (Margaret took the only other good one.)

Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character?

It wasn’t a crush. It was love, dammit.

The last book you bought is?

I bought ten books at once from Amazon to reward myself for finishing a big job. But I'll just mention the two best ones:

Alasdair Gray, 1982
B.S. Johnson, Christie Malry’s Own Double-entry

What are you currently reading?

Collected Stories by Richard Yates
John Berryman’s The Dream Songs
Final Accounting: Ambition, Greed, and the Fall of Arthur Andersen by Barbara Ley Toffler

Five books you would take to a deserted island:

See Question 1. (Vols 1-5)

Who are you going to pass this stick to (3 persons) and why?

I'll pass, thanks.

This Just In

"Deutsche Messe AG is owned by its shareholders."

How extraordinary.

Guest Workers, Part 4

You may remember that I recently mentioned an honor killing in Berlin.

Just now, I saw the victim's picture on Deutsche Welle:


Hatin Sürücü

Why I Love My Agency Clients

A little while ago, a client "fixed" a press release I had translated. Call me a frustrated poet, but the changes squelched any aspirations that text ever had.

So what did I do? I complained to the agency and got an immediate response. They told me to ignore the changes - they would talk to the client for me.

Who, me bitch about agencies? Never!

Drop Your Panties, Sir William!

Scott Kurtz revisits the Hungarian Phrasebook shtick.

Eeek! A Mouse!

Margaret Marks beat me to the punch today. Kind of.

I was actually going to mention the Anir Optical Mouse. Again, it takes some getting used to, but it is a vast improvement over many other types of mice.


Anir Optical Mouse

The Evoluent Vertical Mouse comes in both a left-hand and a right-hand version, so you can mouse with both hands. My wife uses the left-hand model and needed very little time to get used to it.


Evoluent Vertical Mouse

Well, Does It?

Judy: Hello, thanks for calling the Translation Ethics Hotline, this is Judy, how may I help you?

Trench: Hi, I’m in a bit of a quandary here. You see, lately I’ve been getting nothing but joint venture contracts, partnership agreements, bills of sale, that sort of thing.

Judy: I see.

Trench: And, well, it makes me wonder how the stock market’s doing.

Judy: The stock market?

Trench: Yeah. You see, if I get all these contracts and glowing stock analyses and whatnot, doesn’t that mean that the stock market’s going to get better?

Judy: I guess so, sure.

Trench: And if I just happen to have some capital lying around that I need to invest, and I just happen to invest it in some equity funds because I see things are improving in the business community…

Judy: Uh-huh.

Trench: Well, I guess my question is: does that qualify as insider trading?

On A Lighter Note

I've just stumbled across a translation blog called "Paul Frank's Language Jottings." The entries range from German to Latin and Chinese. Here's his description:

Here you'll find occasional jottings on language, translation, and whatever strikes my fancy. I'm a Chinese-English translator for Sinorama magazine in Taipei, China Rights Forum in New York City, and a few other folks here and there. You can reach me at paulfrank@post.harvard.edu.

My Final Exam

From the tangle of voices in the interpreter's booth, one thought tightened into a clear, hard knot: “Fuck this! No way in hell!”

I gently raised one hand, splayed out on the formica tabletop, and pressed it against my knee to stop the shaking. A moist, dirty palm print remained next to my homemade notepad and the five pens I had arranged carefully in a row before the speech began.

I leaned in to the microphone, like a biker rising up on his pedals, as if that small motion would get me through the text faster. I wanted nothing more desperately than to escape, to disappear. But where to?

In this cube-shaped booth, one entire side was made of glass. Looking through this window into the audience, I saw thirty headphoned heads nodding in unison after every sentence I finished. On one side of the room, my teachers were writing furiously in their notepads, variously frowning and smiling.

I was trapped.

Leaning forward even more, I closed my eyes and battered through the text, sentence by sentence. Suddenly, my headphones went silent, made a slight click, and then piped in a gentle voice: “That’s it. You can get up now.”

My legs trembled as I stumbled out of the booth. The door swung shut and I took in one shuddering breath after another. “Three more days,” I thought. “Three more days, two more exams, and then I never have to interpret again.” Behind a larger door ten feet distant sat thirty people, waiting to pat me on the back and tell me that in a few short days, I, too, would be a fully certified conference interpreter.

Only an hour previously, I would have smiled and agreed. To be an interpreter! The fame! The glory! And here I was, ready to give it up.

I squared my shoulders, and walked through the door.

News Flash: German Is Germane To Germany

In the beginning, I viewed learning German as intellectual body-building: something that was good for your general form, but not all that useful. Like adding up license plate numbers while waiting at a bus stop, it was a good way to pass the time. I’d carry on conversations with myself in German, or call up girls I knew and leave messages on their answering machine in German.

When I came to Germany, I was shocked to discover that Germans actually spoke German. Deep down, I had always suspected that German was something only spoken in public. Once people went home, they shed their public persona and spoke the only real language: English.

The only real language, that is, except Spanish. Everyone knows that Mexicans speak Spanish. Except when they’re home. Then they speak English, like the rest of us. Right?

I Translate, Ergo I Type

If you're an ergonomics junkie like me, you may be interested in Datahand's sale:

While inventory lasts, we are offering 50% lower pricing for DataHand® Ergonomic Keyboards: Personal $497ea., ProII $647ea. and Ten Key $247ea. The new pricing includes a 90 day limited warranty.

Since they normally cost in the neighborhood of $1200, that's actually a bargain. I would recommend the ProII version - it offers remappable keys, and with the keyboard's layout, you won't be able to use a software remapper.

The only downside is the steep learning curve. I'm finally coming to grips with my own Datahand keyboard. Before, I would give up and use my trusty ErgoElan when deadlines loomed near. Now, it only takes a little concentration. Soon, I hope to not have to think at all when I translate.

Wait - that didn't quite sound right.

Blast From The Past - 86

I just read this headline in Wired News:

Drunk? Your Car Will '86' You

I used to work at restaurants, where 86 meant "cancel". As in, "Hey, man, 86 the potato cheese soup! Someone spit in it again!" The tickertape printouts churned out at the line would also use '86' to mean "hold". So "CSAL 86 PARM" told you to not put Parmesan in the next Caesar salad you made.

I hadn't heard that word in about fifteen years...

As The World Turns

It throws up these reports:

Immigration in Sweden. It appears to have some parallels to the situation in Germany.

Bloggers who bridge the culture gap. It reports in detail on Global Voices Online. This Harvard University initiative showcases bloggers, particularly from the developing world.

New Buzzword - Triage / Priorisierung

The past few weeks, I've been hearing a lot about triage. Here's an IT definition:

1) A strategy designed to process the most important items first, such as dealing with priority email messages first and less important messages second.

Sounds like Priorisierung to me...

It's actually a medical term. Here's the medical definition:

1) This is a system of sorting patients according to their illness or injuries so that patients can be steered to the most appropriate health worker.

New Translation Portal

Among translation portals, the new kid on the block is BabelPort.

Unlike the other portals, it offers translation industry news. Hmmm. Maybe it will be a real competitor for ProZ.

Their opening page is refreshingly casual:

Why babelport.com and what's the deal with this ugly logo?

I agree. Their logo is absolutely hideous.

Their explanation is slightly surreal:

We saw was the Monument of the Battle of Nations, the Völkerschlachtdenkmal, commemorating the Battle between Napoleonic Troops and the Prussian and Russian Allies of 1813. So we figured: “This thing is huge, monstrous, old, and it still stands!“.

That's as good a reason as any, I guess.

Guest Workers, Part 3

This is a World report about the honor killing of a Turkish-Kurdish woman in Berlin. She was allegedly shot to death by her brothers in retribution for leaving her husband by arranged marriage.

There was a similar case in the United States in the early 90s. Back then, it was the father killing his daughter for shaming the family. Again, a Kurdish family, albeit one from Iran and not Turkey.

After this earlier killing happened, I brought up the case with an Iranian friend of mine. Her response: "Well, they're peasants. My family's nothing like that."

Guest Workers, Part 2

This is an excellent report on the "border activism" of The Minuteman Project, a group President Bush, to his credit, has referred to as "vigilantes". (If you have problems playing this WMA file, just right-click, save the link address and copy it into Winamp or Windows Media Player. There is a "Play URL" option in the File menu for both programs.)

The Guardian/Observer has an article on The Minuteman Project here.

In another parallel with the mass migration of unlettered Mexicans to the U.S., The Economist recently said:

EUROPEANS' perceptions of Turkey are often shaped by the Turks they know. In Germany, these tend to be the Gastarbeiter (guest workers) who moved there in the 1960s to take up low-grade jobs that the booming post-war economy could no longer fill from the domestic labour market. Over 2m Turks came, and they were mostly honest, hard-working and religious people. But they were economic refugees, poor villagers from the east, not model citizens of Ataturk's republic.

Many of their children, though, have moved on, to become anything from prominent European parliamentarians to star European footballers. One of them even married one of the sons of Helmut Kohl, a former German chancellor. It is just the sort of transformation that Ataturk would have wished for his countrymen.

Yet experience of the Gastarbeiter has left Germans in two minds about Turkish entry into the EU. Their main worry is about a massive further inflow of economic migrants. The Social Democrat-led government of Chancellor Gerhard Schröder is generally supportive, but the opposition Christian Democrats, led by Angela Merkel, have vowed to do everything possible to wreck Turkey's application. A federal election is due next year, with the outcome still wide open. Even Mr Kohl, the Christian Democrat chancellor who was voted out in 1998, has spoken against Turkish membership, saying that he is “convinced that Turkey will not fulfil the Copenhagen criteria”. These are the basic conditions for joining the EU, which lay down that “membership requires that the candidate country has achieved stability of institutions guaranteeing democracy, the rule of law, human rights and respect for and protection of minorities.”

German Buzzwords You Love To Hate

Kundennähe. Try to find a definition of this word. Go on – I dare you. In my extensive research (i.e., searching Google for 60 seconds), I found zilch. Sometimes it means “better customer service”. Sometimes “having a branch close to the customer”. Who knows?
That said, I recently saw something in English that covered both bases: “even closer personal service”. Maybe I’ll give that one a try.

X setzt auf Y. Has anyone ever come up with a decent translation for this? All it means is X bought Y’s product or service. But you have to dress it up. Sure, if one of the two is a bank you can say that X banks on Y. Everything else is equally weak:
X goes with Y (I guess X is wearing Y’s class ring, too.)
X opts for Y (at gunpoint, I gather)
X partners with Y (a bit exaggerated)
Y saves X’s business/life/marriage/etc. (Y would certainly love that one)

Faszination Produkt. This means absolutely nothing. But it sounds good. The challenge is to invent something equally windy.

Quips and Quiddities

"I'm outside Modena," W------ says. I've called her because a major account needs a translation into German. I don't work into German, but W------ does. In fact, she's been translating since I was in diapers.

"Modena?" I ask. "Where is Modena, anyway?"

"It's in Italy. Outside Bologna. You know where Bologna is?"

"No - I'm American, you know. I'm not supposed to know anything about geography."

Luckily, she laughs at this quip.

About a year ago, I wasn't so lucky. A client called, apoplectic, because I had written in one text that Allgäu was in Switzerland. And my quip failed utterly to make her laugh.

Yes, I now know it's not in Switzerland. But gimme a break, willya? I'm American. We're not supposed to know anything about geography.

Canola / Rapeseed / Raps

Thanks to an article in the New Scientist, I now know that Rapsöl is really canola oil. Good to know - I always felt odd telling my wife, "Don't worry - we have more than enough rape oil for lunch!"

A Very Short Post

This guy is a genius.

Read Any Good Books Lately?

Guest workers are hitting the headlines in the U.S. I haven’t sifted through every report, but this article warns U.S. lawmakers of the very problems that caught Germany unawares. (Alas, I haven't managed to buy the full version yet. But I'll try, try again.)

The problem seems to stem from the word “guest”. In other words, the workers expect - and are expected - to leave one day. But they end up staying. In Toprak’s book, one young man says: “My mother always says, ‘One more year, then we’ll go to Turkey’. … But that’s what they always say. They always say that. Man, they’ve been saying that since I was in elementary school.” (p. 59)

Now, I’m too ill-informed to pontificate further. But I want to learn more. Most of us have been immigrants, so you might know of a good book on immigration. If so, please put it in the comments.

One caveat: if it’s not in English, I can’t afford to read it. Got to keep my edge, you know.

Young Turks

"After three days, fish and guests start to smell." – American saying

"It was a mistake for us to bring guest workers from foreign cultures into the country." - Helmut Schmidt, ex-chancellor of Germany

"We came as guest workers and 40 years later we are still guest workers. But it will change, the third generation will be German." - Recep Tuerkoglu, head of the Islamic Turkish Association

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

I live under the same roof as a German-American teenager. For years, he has told me that Turkish teenagers have threatened and attacked him. Hearing this made my palms sweat. Not out of fear for him. But out of fear of what he might become.

After years of refusing to believe him, I now do. What I don’t understand is why. I hoped to find the answer in a book called “Ich bin eigentlich nicht aggressiv” (I’m not really aggressive) by Ahmet Toprak, a German social worker of Turkish descent.

This is a kind of book report about the book.

Toprak describes how 12 young men, all 3rd-generation Turkish immigrants, are socialized. Here are some tidbits:

• Many parents (2nd-generation immigrants) don’t know the difference between the various schools. For example, if their son goes to a Hauptschule (think “vo-tech”), they assume he can still become a doctor. (p. 31, p. 58)
• The kids often can’t speak German or Turkish properly. For example, until the mid-90s, Turkish kids in Bavaria had classes in Turkish so that they could be resocialized in Turkey. In other words, they were never supposed to be integrated in Germany. But can a German school prepare them for life in Turkey? (p. 58)
• Most of the kids don’t have their own rooms. One said, “My brothers and sisters do their homework at the kitchen table. And if company comes, they just don’t do any homework at all.” (p.36)
• These kids - born in Germany, raised in Germany and educated in Germany - have three-month visas. They can’t extend them because they keep committing petty crimes. But nor can they get a job with a three-month visa. (p. 40)
• They don’t have a realistic perception of Turkey. They idealize Turkey because they associate Germany with discrimination and negative experiences. They assimilate Turkey into their personality, so anyone who attacks Turkey attacks them directly. And because they’ve never lived there, they don’t have the reserve to brush off stupid insults. (p. 41)
• Intriguingly, religion is given an extremely superficial treatment in this book. In the margin, I wrote, “What is he hiding?” (p. 44)
• Honor is extremely important: “You have to be ready to go to jail for honor. You shouldn’t be ashamed of that. That’s what it’s like in Turkey. If you protect your honor, they reduce your sentence. … That’s what my Grampa said. My father said the same thing!” (p. 61)
• Honor (Ehre) consists of three different components:
  1) şeref (prestige): being seen as a good person because you do good works. (p. 45)
  2) namus (honor): honor as perceived by the outside world. There is a clear boundary between public and private. When someone oversteps the boundary, say, by insulting your mother, it is your job as a man to defend your mother ruthlessly and determinedly. A man’s namus depends on his wife’s behavior. If she doesn’t remain chaste, it’s because he’s not man enough to keep her chaste. (p. 46)
  3) saygι (respect): respect for older people, etc. (p. 47)
• Men have to respond to any challenge decisively, not pusillanimously. (p. 49)
• Masculinity is equally important. Men are not allowed to cry or appear weak. If a young man appears weak, he loses status within the family and “is no longer consulted in any decisions concerning the family.” (p. 149)
• Friendship is extremely important. No matter what your friend does, you have to stand up for him. In one case, this led to a brawl involving 35 to 50 kids in the Munich pedestrian zone in 1998. The rumble stemmed from a bet on a foosball game between a Turkish teenager and an Albanian one. The loser, who was supposed to buy the other player a beer, welched on the bet. So they decided to duke it out. Problem is, they all called their friends, who called their friends, who then called their friends. But most of them didn’t know why the fight happened: “No, I didn’t know what the reason was. I heard he needed help. I didn’t ask. … Well, what should I have said? They’ll laugh at you otherwise. You have to help your friends, no matter what.” (p. 62)
  In the fight, one boy was killed. Several were gravely injured.

Links (in German):
About a young Turkish prostitute in Germany
Young Turks as victims and perpetrators of violence
Article by Ahmet Toprak with much of the information in the book
Where Ahmet Toprak works

Flour

When I opened the door, I saw my wife frowning at two marbleized pound cakes on the counter. “What’s wrong?” I asked.

“You know the Turkish neighbors downstairs?” I nodded. There were four of them – two older parents in their sixties, and their two college-educated kids. “Well, we ran out of flour, so I went down there to borrow some and the father opened the door. He didn’t understand what I wanted.” She paused and pursed her lips. “He told me to come back in an hour so his daughter could interpret for him.”

“So where’d you get the flour?”

“I went down one floor and asked the Polish woman there for some. Her German’s much better.”

We recently ran into the daughter and told her the story. The woman, who had just passed the German bar exam, was flabbergasted. “I don’t get it,” she said, shaking her head. “He goes shopping. He knows what flour is.” She furrowed her brow. “I’ll have a word with him.” My wife objected. I didn’t. The man had lived in Germany for thirty years. Surely he had seen flour before.

The next day, a knock at the door. I open it to see the burly figure of the father. “Wife in?” he asks. I shake my head, slowly. “Then I tell you. You wife come down. Ask for --.” He put his palms out as if holding a soccer ball.

“Yeah, the flour,” I say.

He nods. “Flour. I no understand. Too fast! Next time, slow. If slow, I understand. Daughter tell me I make big mistake. She tell me, Papa, you make big mistake.”

I laugh. I can’t help it; it’s just a bag of flour, after all. “No, no, no,” I say. “It’s fine.”

“Next time,” he continues, hardly noticing my rudeness, “Ask slow. We have all. Flour, eggs, cheese. We buy big,” he adds, curving his arms out as though hugging a barrel. “Any time. You, you wife, come down. We give you. Any time.”

I thank him, watch him go down the stairs. We say goodbye several times.

They’re our favorite neighbors.

Things I Miss About The South

Yes, I'm from the South. And no, I don't say y'all - unless you're also from the South. Then it just kind of slips out. I can't help it, I swear.

Kudzu. This is the creepiest (har!) plant I have ever seen.


Kudzu eats cars for lunch.

Bourbon Street. The fun part is squeezing past knots of men formed around one woman who, for a two-dollar plastic bead necklace, just might flash her breasts at them. Typical statement heard on Bourbon Street: “Hey, let me by! I just wanna – no, don’t throw up on me, dammit!”


Moving at one block per hour.

Shotgun houses. They can be in various stages of decomposition.


The best house in town.

Corn on the cob. If it doesn’t come off a pickup truck on the side of the road, it doesn’t taste good.


Corn sure is special!

Belle De Jour in Portuguese

In a post dated lundi 7 mars, Belle de Jour comments on questions sent in by the Portuguese translator of her excellent book, The Intimate Adventures of a London Call Girl. Among other things, she frets over the transculturality of nipple-twisting:

(Translator:) Page 245 : I refuse to give him a nipple-twister
(Belle:) Do they not have nipples? Furthermore, do they not twist?

My question: shouldn't she call herself Belle du Jour? Sorry, my knowledge of French is rudimentary at best. While in France once, I wondered aloud why the waiter brought me a vegetarian ratatouille when I had ostensibly ordered a navy-bean soup. My dinner companion glanced at the menu and hissed, "légumes means vegetables, not legumes, you dummy!"

At least it was better than my first pizza in Germany as an exchange student. For toppings, I ordered olives, onions and "pepperoni", wanting nothing more than a dose of home. Imagine my shock when the pizza came: six whole, unpitted black olives, an inch-thick layer of onion slices and a huge hot pepper draped over the whole mess. Where's Pizza Hut when you need them?


This ain't Pizza Hut...

In Loco Veritas

I've got a new law humor link. Here's an excerpt:

I wish I could say that I became a tax attorney because of my love for numbers and clear cut rules, but the truth of the matter is that I became a tax lawyer for the same reason that musicians join bands – for the chicks.

Thanks to TaxProfBlog for pointing it out!

Slam, Bam, Thank You Ma'am

Ever heard of poetry slams? They’re all the rage in the States. Basically, a group of people get together and read their poetry to one another. It’s like a poetry reading, but with tequila instead of herbal tea.

Since this is such a great idea, I’m proposing we have translation slams. Every person gets a text, a pencil and a piece of paper and has 30 minutes to produce the best translation they can. Oh, wait a second - we already have those. They’re called “exams”.

Damn!

Big fat update: Someone apparently read my post, leapt into a time machine and added it to the program for this festival six months ago. Here's the evidence:

On Wednesday, March 30 at 16h00 be sure to attend our “Translation Slam / Le dire autrement”, the non-violent sport of translation.

Ah, the pain of plagiarism!

Making Things Easier

Deadlines keep getting tighter. Here is an actual conversation I had with a client*:

Client: We have about 400 lines that need to be translated by tomorrow.
Trench (looking at calendar): Sorry, no can do. I’m all booked up for the next several days.
Client: Tell you what - the translation doesn’t have to be all that good. Does that make things easier?

_______
*Actually, the agency did the talking. But they were representing my interests, right? Besides, what’s a little embellishment between friends, anyway?

Driver's License Woes

This sounds really familiar...

Thanks to Sonja Tomaskovic for the heads-up.

Google AdNonsense

People say the internet has revolutionized translation. Bullshit. Google has revolutionized translation. Now, if you can’t find a word on Google, it doesn’t exist.

So many of us have become Google drones that we advertise in droves with Google’s AdSense program. Enter “translation agency” in Google and you’ll pull up a bewildering array of AdSense ads and hits, all basically the same.

I, too, rode the AdSense bandwagon. At first, I hovered near the phone with sweaty palms and a dry throat, expecting a deluge of clients. In a four-month period, I had two destitute Ph.D. students ask me to translate their 600-page dissertations. (One of them even requested a per-word rate “because I’ll be revising it later.”) There was one inquiry from an electronics firm who answered neither my calls nor my e-mails. And, mysteriously, six inquiries for English into Dutch.

The vast majority of inquiries, however, went something like this:

From: PrettyGirl16
To: Trench Warrior
Sent: Monday, March 21, 2002 3:35 PM
Subject: PLS PLS PLS HELP!!!!

Cn u translaet this!!! I need it real bd!!! THX SO MUCH!!!!!!! ;-) ;-)

Ill chx 4 it 2morrow!!! THX THX!!!!!!

Attached was a ten-page term paper downloaded from a cheat site.

Suffice to say, I cancelled the service pretty quickly.

Here I Come, Hollywood

I love translation because it’s like acting without the stage fright. Got a contract? I can pretend to be Mitchell McDeere from The Firm. Have a PowerPoint presentation on a fly-by-night company? You can trust your pal, Bernie Ebbers. Want to threaten a competitor with legal action? Look out, here comes John Gotti. When the role (read: text) fits, it just flows. Some texts I don’t even have to finish reading: once I start one part, I know exactly how it rolls out.

The flip side is that you spend your entire day thinking someone else’s thoughts. It’s like being possessed by an evil spirit, except you get paid for it. Maybe that was really what was wrong with that girl in The Exorcist. She got a lousy text. A really lousy text.


Another case of overwork?

Naked Coed Killers From Mars

I recently heard an announcer on The World say, "They are still trying to slash poverty." It sounds like something out of a campy D-grade slasher flick:


C'mere, poverty!

I wish there was an English version of Der Spiegel's Hohlspiegel so I could send it in. The Hohlspiegel is the only thing I voluntarily subject myself to in German. It gives me hope that German literature will one day be a) not boring b) not pretentious c) about something other than WWII or East Germany. Enough already, willya?

Legal Lingo

This in ContractProf Blog:

A plaintiff who demanded and accepted a specific amount as due him from a breach had entered into an accord and satisfaction.

Huh? So I looked up accord and satisfaction in my Merriam Webster's Dictionary of Law:

Satisfaction:
execution of an accord by performance of the substituted obligation —often used in the phrase accord and satisfaction

And also found this:

Accord:
an accepted offer by which the parties agree that a specified future performance will discharge in full an obligation when performed even though the performance is of less value than the original obligation; also : the defense that an accord was agreed upon —usu. used in the phrase accord and satisfaction;

Other tidbits from Jones Day's Business Restructuring Review:

Stamp taxes are commonly imposed under state or local law in connection with the transfer of real or personal property.

(Last I checked, them was fighting words.)

... the bankruptcy court's ability to exempt from taxation the subject transaction ...

... administrative insolvency, or the absence of sufficient estate assets to pay administrative claims ...

... bankruptcy trustees, chapter 11 debtors-in-possession ...

... a request for action by a party-in-interest ...

... to work out a consensual plan ... to work out a consensual resolution ...

... "ancillary" bankruptcy proceedings ... (in which) a duly appointed representative of a foreign company that is the subject of a bankruptcy or insolvency proceeding abroad may commence a limited bankruptcy case in the U.S. for the purpose of protecting and, where appropriate, repatriating that debtor's assets to the host country.

Google Desktop - PDFs

The new release of Google Desktop Search now supports PDFs. You can also download plugins that support other formats, including OmniPage scans.

Found In The Want Ads

Today, I received the following e-mail, which I am not making up:

Description:
Yeknom Industries seeks English to Monkey Translator. And proper monkey.
Not that garbage slang the kids use today. One guy applied for the job, and told the boss, "Er er aaah aaaaaah!" That not even a full sentence!
"Er EEE er aaaah aaaaaah!" I mean come on, doesn't that just SOUND better? Good thing youth is curable!

REQUIREMENTS
About Yeknom Industries:
Yeknom Industries largest monkey collective in world. Found in 1976 with patent of stick, Yeknom Industries operate 22 countries, employ chimpanzees, and a humans. If have opposable thumb, even one, and considered cog in bloated industry machine, explore Yeknom Industries'
career jobs. www.yeknominc.com

Thesaurus On Steroids

I have a new toy: the "Phrase Finder", by J.I. Rodale. According to the first page, it is

"Three volumes in one comprising

Name-Word Finder
Metaphor Finder
Sophisticated Synonyms"

And it's from 1958.

The index alone accounts for the first 200 pages.

The Name-Word Finder contains entries like this:

LEMNIAN
Lemnian refers to the island of Lemnos in the north Aegean Sea. The proverbial phrase Lemnian deeds alludes to actions of unusual barbarity and cruelty, and arose from two horrible massacres perpetrated by an entry in a book that was this long and boring. In any event, Lemnos was an island that may or may not have sunk into the sea, but I'm sure that your eyes have glazed over at this point. The second was the slaughter of all children born of Athenian mothers and Lemnian fathers and was prompted by the men's suspicion that this entry is getting duller and duller and more and more useless as time goes on. Lemnos as also the center of the cult of Hephaestus (Bill Gates), because it was on that island that the god fell when Zeus kicked him out of Harvard.

atrocious Lemnian inhumanity"

That takes up 500 pages.

Then, there is the Metaphor Finder. This beauty has entries like this:

JUDGE (v.)
weigh in the balance; weigh each side of question; preside over a court of appeal; umpire a contest; weigh in the scales of one's judgment; hold the scales; set a question at rest; weigh with a glance; measure a matter; sit upon a decision; bring up for the count; appraise by rule of thumb; weigh the pros and cons; referee a match; sit at the broad green cloth; reflect the great eye of justice; call to stand before the higher court; enroll another in the Doomsday book; bring to book; hold the scales even; administer even-handed justice; give a square deal.
(see decide, determine, doom, law, condemn, legal, lawyer, official, rebuke)

Entries like "KILL" are even better. That section takes up 200 pages.

Finally, there is the Sophisticated Synonyms section, which has entries like this:

BUSY
As busy as a one-armed goalkeeper; as busy as a cat in a butcher shop; steeped to the eyebrow; tied up; busy as pipers; up to his neck; up to his neck; was so busy that he never read the Sunday papers before Monday or Tuesday; up to their eyes in plans for; I am so busy I do not know where I am afoot or ahorseback; (and my personal favorite:) busy as a one-armed obstetrician delivering quintuplets.

(See active, work.)

That takes up 200 pages.

Don't confuse it with Hugon's "Modern Word Finder", which is so pedantic it makes Strunck & White look like Sonny & Cher. Unless, of course, you have problems keeping "perdition", "sacrifice" and "forfeit" apart. If so, you are in the wrong business.

Take My Business - Please!

Boy, does word get around fast. No sooner do I rank a mention from Margaret Marks and the Naked Translator than I receive this fax:


Hostile Takeover Bid

The tears come from my initial misgivings that this might be a joke, or spam. But then I realized how valuable my incoherent ramblings are to a multinational power player in investment banking. So I've decided to sell my business for a mere € 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.

I plan on using the discounted cash flow to value my company, mainly because that bible of investment banking, "Monkey Business" refers to it as the "grandaddy of all crocks of shit. It's the technique that makes Linda Lovelace look like a Catholic schoolgirl and Richard Nixon look like Abe Lincoln."

Soon, I hope to be updating you on what the rum in the Bahamas tastes like, and how to cope with the horrors of sand in your suit.

Update: Peer Review

Final Accounting: Ambition, Greed, and the Fall of Arthur Andersen by Barbara Ley Toffler calls peer review "more of a backslapping exercise than anything else, since no Big 5 firm ever issued anything other than a clean bill of health to its peers."

I wonder if I should add that definition to my glossary?

CPA Journal Tidbits

Things I found interesting, unusual or familiar in the January 2005 edition:

Peer review program that ... reports on non-SEC-issuer accounting ...

... errors-and-omissions coverage for tax preparation ... (sound familiar?)

Under existing accounting rules, restricted stock grants are considered an expense, but fixed, "at the money," stock option grants are not.

Auditors returning to an engagement rely on prior-year workpapers to help plan the audit.

Beginning in 2003, all nonrefundable personal tax credits are allowed to the extent of the full amount of an individual's regular tax and the AMT.

... previously deductible environmental cleanup costs must be capitalized as indirect costs of inventory in accordance with IRC section 263A.

Because no cost recovery is allowed for land...

The fact pattern in Revenue Ruling 2004-18...

... the inventory's proper share of those indirect costs ...

... the adjusted book value method-net asset value method calculates the value of a professional practice by subtracting the economic value of the business' liabilities from the total value of its assets...

Taking a reverse mortgage on the house ...

... these values are outliers, representing unusual data ...

Business phenomena such as wildcat strikes ...

The regression line is often referred to as the least squares regression line or the line of best fit.

T tables are used to find values for sample sizes less than 60.

Z tables are used for large sample sizes.

Coefficient of correlation / coefficient of determination / coefficient of nondetermination


When products or services are transferred (sold) between various parts of a company, a transfer price or a chargeback must be determined.

The federal tax deposit should be called into the EFTPS program at least one business day before the deposit is due;

Passive-Aggressive

Today, I'm working on an annual report for the research arm of a large organization. It's all very hush-hush, so I can't give any more information. Or if I did, I'd have to kill you.

What gets me, though, is the fact that the entire 50-page report is written in the passive form. It feels like it's sucking my soul away, one unfocused sentence after another.

Which brings me to George Orwell. He once wrote 6 guidelines for good writing. The Economist, that shining beacon of style, lists them in its own Style Guide. I've got them printed out and tacked to the wall behind my monitors. Here they are:

· Never use a metaphor, simile or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.

· Never use a long word where a short one will do.

· If it is possible to cut out a word, always cut it out.

· Never use the passive where you can use the active.

· Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.

· Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

I also own the StyleWriter, an absolutely marvelous virtual editor that takes forever to use, but offers some valuable guidance on tightening up my writing style. I've also got its edicts on plain writing tacked onto my wall:

1. Plan and organize your material.
2. Keep your average sentence length low.
3. Use verbs to give your writing action.
4. Make every word count.
5. Use correct spelling, punctuation and grammar.
6. Read and revise everything you write

I particularly like No. 4, which is a more positive variation on Strunck & White's terse command, "Omit needless words."

Another book I've found extremely useful was Style: Toward Clarity and Grace, by Joseph Williams. No matter how often I read it, I learn something new every time.

Update: I just ran the Economist's article on the SATs through the StyleWriter. It rated an "Average". Maybe I should try to get my money back...

We Don't Need No Stinkin' Lawyer Jokes!

A law firm that doesn't take itself too seriously.

Odd Todd with briefs - in every sense of the word.

Something Awful is threatened with another lawsuit. Lucky for them, they can count on the services of Leonard "J." Crabs. Leonard "J." Crabs positively shines in this, his greatest case.

And my favorite undercover lawyer.

Clash of the Titans

Ladies and gentlemen, in the left corner I give you the challenger Werner Georg Patels! Tireless promoter of TranslatorsCafe.com! Translation educator extraordinaire! And the wielder of a fierce left jab!

In the right corner, I give you the one, the only, heavyweight champion sumo wrestler of the world - Yamishogun!

Click here to see these two men duke it out in a no-holds-barred battle for the championship of the world! You'll be delighted! Entertained!

Satisfaction guaranteed! No refunds.

Ode to U-Jobs

Old Alexander von O
Attacked one translating schmoe
"Shame on you," said he,
"You sent your quote to me!
And now lots of people know!"

(I won't be quitting my day job anytime soon.)

One of the most tragic victims of so-called "progress" is u-jobs. For years, we were regaled with Alexander von Obert's trenchant wit ("So what's your real job? Trash collection?"). He was inexhaustible in weeding out incompetents, idiots, the weak, the hungry and - most of all - the cheap. Yours truly once sent him a kind e-mail because his server appeared to be on the fritz. Being a service-conscious administrator, he responded immediately with a withering e-mail insinuating that I had gotten my head firmly stuck in a rather private portion of my anatomy, and would I be so kind as to remove it.

Now, u-jobs is efficient. You can't accidentally announce your prices for all the world to see. You can't send as much spam or useless advertisements. As a result, there's much less reason for AvO to weigh in with his priceless witticisms and clever comebacks to delight readers. Instead, efficiency reigns. While he may be making more money and becoming a better technical writer, we have lost the Grinch of the translation community. And that's the real tragedy.

Trench Warrior Has Not Left His Desk. I Repeat, Trench Warrior Has Not Left His Desk.

My clients are conspiring to keep me chained to my desk this week. Updates will resume once I've foiled their nefarious plans.

Oh, to be as consistent as Margaret Marks!

The Translator's Survival Kit

Inevitably, you will want to brave the elements and actually leave your house. Don’t be afraid; many translators have left their homes and lived to tell the tale. It’s a dangerous enterprise, though, so make sure you’re properly equipped. Here is a non-exhaustive list of essential items that will help you survive “out there”.

1) Shoes.
Yes, I know your slippers are so much more comfortable, but these days, fashion-conscious pedestrians wear more robust footwear with soles and actual laces.

2) A coat
Note: Only in winter.

3) Combed hair.

4) Pants.
Note: Make sure to pull and zip them up. The "ankle look" went out of fashion while you were pulling an all-nighter to finish that text on O-ring selection.

5) A dictionary.
Someone may say a word that you don’t know the translation for.

6) Pen and paper.
Someone may say a word you can use in a future translation.

7) Your cell phone.
In case your six-year-old needs to call you from her cell phone. Clients won't call you on your cell phone. They will leave an incomprehensible message on your answering machine and then give the job to someone else ten minutes before you get back.

8) Your laptop.
You might have about two minutes to spare while waiting in line at Wal-Mart. Put it to good use – churn out three lines’ worth of work!

9) Your PDA.
The CEO of General Electric may be waiting in line behind you, see what you’re doing and want to give you his number.

10) Your business cards.
The CEO may not have his PDA on him. Carry at least five hundred – better safe than sorry.

11) A bottle of water.
Hydrate, hydrate, hydrate.

Patently Obvious

This is absolute poetry. Here's a quote:

A patent gives the owner the right to stop others from reproducing the invention. The patent is virtually the garden fence around the sowed seed and protects and ensures, that the harvest belongs to that person who made the effort to sow the seed in the first place.

These attorneys are not only elegant, they also cut right to the chase. For example, here's something I've often wondered:

What other Intellectual Property Rights do exist?

For technical inventions a so-called utility model exists besides patent. For aesthetic models or design a design patent is available.

The copyright protects works of art, science and literature as e.g. books as well as computer programs. Words and logos for goods and services can be protected through trademarks.

Further property rights follow from the plant variety protection law for plants and the semiconductor protection law for microelectronic semiconductor devices.

I’ve often wondered about the differences between patents and utility models. Here are some:

1) Utility models expire after 10 years.
2) They are easier to get than patents.
3) They are not examined by the patent office prior to registration. Their protectability is only checked after a lawsuit has been filed for infringement.
4) They only cover the shape, structure or combination of articles, unlike patents, which also cover processes.
5) They are better if you want to protect a short-lived product.
6) They are better if you don’t want to wait for a full-blown patent.

There is also a discussion of the different types of marks here.

Olde English Laws, Anyone?

ContractsProf Blog reports on the first Anglo-Saxon contract statute, the Nine Dooms of Ethelbert. They are full of references to the familiar-sounding "leodgeld", defined as the "fine paid for killing a man".

Makes you glad you weren't alive back then, doesn't it?

Translators: The Magazine Mavens

Any translation professional will tell you to read trade journals obsessively. What I hadn’t expected was the specificity. Doing hardware reviews? Check Anandtech. Redesigning your kitchen? Kitchen & Bath Design has some ideas. Relocating your company? Pore over Area Development and Site Selection. It wouldn’t shock me to come across a magazine for back-office hotel-management-software developers programming only in FORTRAN. Finding it’s the only real hitch.

My absolute favorites, the magazines no one told me about in college, are the free ones from manufacturers. There’s SAP Info for business-process geeks, ABB Review for power-generation black belts or IBM eServer for – er, people who do that stuff. Admittedly, they’re chock-full of shameless plugs and you can’t believe any of the product claims, but the buzzwords are all in there. And, if you are doing SAP-related stuff, where else should you go but the horse’s mouth?

If you’re hankering for more substance, you can even get free newsletters from PwC, Accenture and Forrester Research, which deliver more bang for your non-existent buck.

The only problem is finding time to read it. I just slip it under my pillow, in the hopes that, yes, osmosis really does work like that.

On Sex and Violence

Today, at the gas station, I realized how inured I’ve become to pornography. Instead of deliberately glancing above the racks of big-bosomed, lip-licking trucker porn, I felt my gaze just brush by and over it as I cruised out the door. It was so anticlimactic that I thought it must really mean something.

It’s hard to explain pornography’s role in Europe to anyone who’s only lived within the U.S. Naked breasts appear on a fairly regular basis in Spiegel, the Germany’s equivalent of Time Magazine, and on an extremely rigid schedule on the front page of Bild-Zeitung, a rag which has no equivalent in the U.S. You go beyond accepting porn; you gradually assimilate it into your world view. It’s no longer surprising to see softcore action on public TV after 10:30 p.m. Gratuitous nudity is often used in comedies as a cheap laugh. Off-color jokes now seem only stupid; not stupid and embarrassing. Eventually, you become European in your outlook.

Then, you watch an American film and become overwhelmed by the sheer brutality of it all. I’m certainly not the first to note that most action-film heroes are homicidal psychopaths. And they always triumph by meting out to the villain a horrifically gruesome death. Over the years, I’ve developed a theory that this violence is America’s pornography. Lacking its natural outlet, the animal sex drive appeared, distorted and distended, as America’s love affair with guns, knives, boxing, you name it.

Caught Red-Handed

Is culpa in contrahendo Greek to you?

Check out this link. And this one.

God, I love the internet.

Three Short Months.

I occasionally scout out translation agencies. Partly out of curiosity or boredom, but mostly to reassure myself that I’m not getting a raw deal with my current agency clients. One website gave me a particular chuckle the other day. They talk about clients being “stupid” or “smart”. I stopped cold, though, when they said that 98% of their native-language translators live in their mother countries. They paraded it around like it was a real benefit. And here’s their reasoning:

“How long do you think it takes a person to start to lose their mother-tongue fluency after they have left their mother-country?

• A year?
• Two years?
• Five years?

The answer is three months. Just three months.

Language is fluid. It changes quickly. Both style and vocabulary evolve relentlessly. In the last decade, for example, more than 30,000 new words entered the English language. That's 3,000 new words a year. More than 8 new words every single day. One new word every 3 hours.

No surprise then that a translator living outside of their mother-country finds it difficult to produce contemporary texts - using appropriate style and terminology. So, whenever possible, we work with translators that live and work in their mother-tongue countries - something made possible by our investment in high-speed data and telecommunications technology.”

Did I resent that? Not really. They’re right about the three months, though.

As to their reasoning, here’s some food for thought:

1. Shakespeare is still widely read, despite the fact that, by the above reckoning, 1,164,000 new words have entered the English language since his death. He is also widely misunderstood.

2. Most English native speakers have an active vocabulary of 800 words. Most German native speakers have an active vocabulary of several thousand.

3. In Germany, there are enormous Turkish communities where only Turkish, not German, is spoken.

4. 2003 Pulitzer Prize winner Jeffrey Eugenides lives in Berlin. Samuel Beckett lived in Paris.

5. The concept of “togethering” was presented and debated at a recent trade show. One of the expert panelists confessed that she didn’t know what “togethering” meant.

6. I don’t know any translators who memorize 8 new words every day. I haven’t memorized vocabulary in almost a decade.

Stigma of Slang

I’ve noticed that whenever I make a linguistic flourish, German clients will pounce on the phrase as “slangy” and ask to have it removed. I’m a professional, so I wince ever so slightly, and do it.

I wince because invariably these changes strip the voice out of the text. Once, I wrote something like “you don’t want to squander your time.” This was struck and replaced with “you don’t want to waste time or money.” Both are idiomatic, but one makes me want to continue reading. The other makes me want to yawn.

Agony of Advertising: Part 2

Irony of ironies - a copywriting course came in the mail today.

In my first post, I make my view abundantly clear that translation is a subset of writing. Sure, translation bridges languages and cultures, but the finished product is still black-on-white verbiage. And if you do it right, no one will know it’s a translation.

If you're an ivory-tower type, you can probably reel off a list of exceptions to my hard-and-fast rule. I’m the first to agree that word-for-word translations of the Yanomami language are anthropologically useful. But they don’t pay my bills.

What pays my bills is my ability to write (no catcalls, please!). This is a point novice translators miss. They figure that if it sounds authentic, then no one can quibble with it. Problem is, authentic English is often crap. You need to write excellent English. Hence my desire to polish my writing skills.

I picked this particular course because it offers ten graded assignments. So I’m forced to write ten texts, and someone has to critique them? Beautiful. Mainly because then I have no excuse for not writing.

Agony of Advertising

An entire German ad campaign was slung onto my virtual doorstep today. The catch: the one-hour turnaround.

I've never pulled my hair or gnashed my teeth like an Edgar Allen Poe character, but I came damn close today. The copywriter had crafted a miniature masterpiece: tight copy that felt loose. The ads allegedly sported quotes from real people, but someone had obviously sweated over those lines for hours until they were just so.

The bastard. I knew, I just knew he was only being that good to piss me off.