A blog about translation, writing and language in all its glorious aspects
Voting is now open for the Top 100 Language Blogs 2012 competition organised by LexioPhiles, for which we’ve been nominated in the “Language Professionals” category. Voting takes place from 15 to 28 May 2012. If you’d like to vote for Words to good effect, you can do so here. Thank you!
PS Having chosen a name that begins with “W”, we’re right at the bottom of the list, so if you want to vote for “Words to good effect” you’ll need to scroll — sorry!
By Marian Dougan
Earl Bush served for many years as press secretary for Richard J. Daley, a controversial mayor of Chicago who was a forerunner to another Bush, George W., in his mangling of the English language. Examples are:
“Gentlemen, get the thing straight once and for all — the policeman isn’t there to create disorder, the policeman is there to preserve disorder”.
“We shall reach greater and greater platitudes of achievement”.
You can read some of his more colourful (politically correct, not) utterances here.
Bush got pretty fed up with reporters gleefully quoting the Mayor’s mistakes verbatim and pleaded with them:
Don’t print what he said. Print what he meant.
Earl Bush and Mayor Daley often come to my mind when I’m editing texts written in English by non-native speakers, or translations for which, for whatever reason, I don’t have the source-language text. Here are some cases where I’ve had to “say what they meant, not what they said”.
“The common foreign and security policy for Europe is indispensable for the defensive piece of democracy in the world”
“The role of the diplomat is to act as a trade union and help build bridges between nations and cultures”
“The organisation has a duty to veil over peace and security”.
So what did the translators/writers actually mean?
The first should have read “…for the defence of peace and democracy”. In the second, “trade union” should have been “trait d’union”. I suspect that these texts were the work of translators who use voice recognition software. I also suspect that the translators didn’t print out and read their texts before delivering their work.
The last example was from a text written directly in English, by an Italian. To “veil over” peace and security had me puzzled, until I switched into Italian thinking mode and realised the writer must have meant “vegliare”: to watch over, to keep vigil.
In cases like these, you need to “listen” to the words — in your head, or by reading them out loud. That’s when the penny drops.
So, translators and editors, yet another skill to add to our already impressive range of expertise: mind-reading.
Do you ever find yourself having to read your clients’, or other colleagues’, minds? Let us know in the comments — we’d love to see your examples.
By Marian Dougan
A recent article in The Vancouver Sun entitled What are the jobs of the future? examines the skills and careers likely to be most in demand as the 21st century progresses. The article cites a study by Sharon D. Crozier, of the University of Calgary’s Counselling Centre, on “Waves of the Future and High Demand Careers” — waves in this case being career categories.
The main waves are:
Information Revolution
High Technology & Materials Creation
Global Village
Natural Systems Awareness
Demographics
Patterns of Working
Emerging Careers for the 21st Century
The “Global Village” section reads:
Global Village
E-commerce, Internet, telecommunications, free trade agreements, open borders, cheap travel alternatives – these are all contributing to a shrinking world with business, trade and tourism happening on a global scale. More and more companies are doing business on a worldwide scale, both with having offices and employees around the globe as well as selling internationally. Do you know the most well known Red & White logo in the world? It isn’t the Red Cross – yes, it’s Coca-Cola! The Internet has opened both lines of communication as well as being an amazing venue for both retail and service sales. Borders are opening not only for business, but also for skilled immigrants, and many developed countries such as Canada, Australia and the United States are increasingly multi-cultural environments.
High Demand Careers
- Internet Specialists
- Web-page Designers
- International Lawyers
- Protocol Officers
- Language and Cultural Experts
- Translators
- Sensitivity and Diversity Trainers
Yet another reason not to listen to people who say learning languages — and by extension, learning about other cultures and culturally-based forms of diversity — is irrelevant.
By the way: the University of Calgary’s study dates from 2001, so it’s more than 10 years old. Any thoughts on how careers are developing with respect to the predictions?
By Marian Dougan
Ruth Webber, a friend and generous source of marketing wisdom, moved from Scotland to Australia earlier this year. So a new city and country to discover, and a new variant of English to explore. Here are Ruth’s first impressions of English, Australian-style.
Having been in Sydney all of two months, I can reliably report that we do speak the same language, but there are some colourful variations. You will have heard some of these but hopefully others will be novel:
Larrikin (slang) — young hoodlum or hooligan. The origin is unknown but the term was popularised in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The term was applied to the large numbers of sporadically employed teenagers and young adults who banded together in gangs or “pushes”.
Rort — a financial impropriety, particularly relating to a government programme.
Tinny, stubby, schooner — can, bottle and 3/4 pint glass of the nation’s favourite drink. Apparently David Cameron is in favour of introducing the schooner to British pubs.
Brumby — horse, stallion
Flat white — there is probably a whole new vocabulary for different styles of coffee, but this is the one I prefer.
Dunny — toilet (especially an outhouse)
Bottle shop — you have to buy alcohol here, as supermarkets don’t sell it (except Woolworths, which has a separate arm for alcohol).
Hotel — very often on a street corner, it’s more like a pub and often doesn’t offer accommodation.
Pokies (poker machine) — what we in the UK would call slot machines. There are moves to reform licensing laws to reduce addiction, as it’s becoming a huge problem.
Aussies love abbrevs:
Salvos — Salvation Army
Arvo — afternoon and “sarvo”, short for “this arvo” e.g. meet you after the game, sarvo.
Balco — balcony
My favourite of these is “rort ” — I can think of so many examples! Has anyone else got examples of “familiar yet foreign” varieties of English? Share them in the comments — we’d love to hear them!
Having spent 23 years running my own marketing consultancy, I’m keen to take up a new challenge in Australia. The kind of thing which interests me is social research or corporate forensic research (my niece is doing this in British Virgin isles), but, as in the UK, it’s hard to enter a new area of business if you don’t have at least three years’ experience.
I will be happy if I find a part time job working as part of a team, doing something interesting and worthwhile — whatever that turns out to be.
By Marian Dougan
One of the participants at the Web-Writing Webinar on 11 April asked me how translators should deal with keywords when working on website translations. The question threw me for a minute, but I realised afterwards (as you do) that the answer should have been: “With great caution”.
Selecting keywords is an important part of the search-engine optimisation (SEO) process. As such, I think it’s best left to SEO specialists. Finding appropriate keywords for the translated (or localised) site isn’t just a matter of translating those of the source-language site.
Ideally, the client should engage an SEO company to optimise their site for the target language, region and community, and send their translator the keywords and phrases for seamless — and judicious — incorporation in the translated copy. And ideally the translator should be an integral part of the web team, not an after-the-event add-on.
That’s what would happen in the ideal world. If, however, your client hasn’t had any SEO done, then one option is to identify suitable keywords and search terms using Google Adwords or similar and send them to the client for further research and approval. That way, you’re providing added value but returning responsibility for SEO to the website owner, where it belongs.
Another point to consider is that SEO costs money. If you, as a translator, offer to do keyword research, you should be paid for it. Are you confident enough in your SEO expertise not just to do that research, but to charge appropriately?
Big translation or localisation companies may take a different approach, or work with their own SEO specialists (do you? please let us know!).
The Yahoo! Style Guide includes a section on keywords and a useful list of keyword research tools. These are useful if you’re trying to optimise your own site but, once again, I’d recommend great caution where clients’ sites are concerned.
I highly recommend the Yahoo! Style Guide — but if you decide to buy it, please, please, order it from your local “bricks and mortar” bookshop.
By Marian Dougan
One of the slides I used for the Web-Writing Webinar on 11 April asked the question:
Users with accessibility or usability issues. Who are they?
The answer was:
All of us.
We all at one time or another (indeed eventually) become less able: you fall and sprain your wrist, get repetitive strain injury, you get older and your eye-sight deteriorates.
That’s life
I got a taste of this myself at the gym the other day. One of the exercises involved throwing a medicine ball to a partner. I caught the ball awkwardly, and it hit my finger at a painful angle. It was the middle finger of my left hand, so not vital for using the mouse or the arrow or tab keys. But it slowed down my typing quite a bit for the day.
The moral of the story is: if you’re thinking of creating a new website or revamping your existing one, make sure it’s accessible for users with impaired abilities. Who sooner or later could be yourself, unless you’re lucky enough to sail through life unscathed by medicine balls or any other fiendish gym apparatus.
The webinar, by the way, can still be viewed through the eCPD Webinars website.
By Marian Dougan
The British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) has published a survey calling for more training in foreign languages to help boost British exports. The BCC calls for:
For those, like me, not familiar with the education system in the non-Scottish bits of the UK, the AS level refers Advanced Subsidiary, the first year of the Advanced Level which is necessary for university entrance. Thank you, Wikipedia.
Here are some key points from the report:
Commenting on the findings of the report, John Longworth, Director General of the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC), said:
Exporting is good for Britain, so it is right that we should encourage current and future business owners to develop the necessary skills to trade overseas. We’re encouraged to see the percentage of firms exporting in our survey has increased from 22% in January 2011 to 32% in January 2012. Exports are equivalent to nearly 30% of UK GDP*, but more can be done to help businesses take the first step to exporting. Encouraging companies to boost foreign language skills with incentives like tax credits is just one way of making sure we continue to export best of British products and services around the world. A renewed focus on language skills at school, as well as helping companies forge new connections overseas, could help ensure that current and future business owners are pre-disposed to thinking internationally.
“Pre-disposed to thinking internationally”. That, I think, is the key point here. Language learning should open pupils’ and students’ eyes to the world outside their own national borders, and make exporting, or interacting with “foreigners”, seem both feasible and desirable.
It may be, however, that language courses in schools need to be up-dated if pupils are to understand their relevance. I haven’t sat in on any lessons, so I don’t know. Could anyone comment on this?
If you’re interested in encouraging school pupils to continue their language learning, check out these Outreach posts for ideas and inspiration.
Public diplomacy — on which Prime Minister David Cameron is engaged right now on his trip to Asia — is another area where language skills are vital. Here are two articles, and a post from this blog, on the subject:
[Only] One in 40 UK diplomats fluent in language of country in which they work
Diplomats who are not fluent in the local tongue risk doing their country a disservice
Blowing the nation’s trumpet: languages and public diplomacy
By Marian Dougan
I’m delighted and honoured that eCPD Webinars has invited me to present a web-writing webinar on 11.30 am (UK time) on Wednesday 11 April 2012.
While eCPD focuses on continual professional development for translators, Wednesday’s webinar will include tips and insights for anyone interested in writing good web copy. It will also give you an overview of usability and accessibility: both good practice, and faults to avoid.
So if you’d like to learn about the key principles involved in good web content, sign up now!
By Marian Dougan
We had a Twitter conversation a couple of weeks ago about Zodiac signs and the sort of character traits that make for good translators/editors. I thought it would be interesting — and fun — to see if there’s any correlation between a person’s zodiac sign and their choice of translation/editing as a career. So I’ve devised this scientifically and statistically rigorous (not!) poll to try to find out.
If you’re not a translator or editor, please take the second poll (you’ll need to scroll a bit — sorry!) so that we can compare the results.
Thank you!
Photo courtesy of Leo Reynolds
By Marian Dougan
Well, that’s International Women’s Day over for 2012. I’m not a big fan of this particular “day” because I think that on 9 March, after all the fine words and the gifts of mimosa (in Italy, at any rate), everything just goes back to normal.
I also think that girls and women in the (still relatively) affluent world can sometimes – just sometimes – be their own worst enemies. So here’s a track by Pink that Janice Forsyth posted on Twitter this morning. It’s a track that girls of all ages can listen to, and hopefully learn from, 365(6) days of the year.
By the way, BBC Radio Scotland is axing Janice’s show this summer so that they can provide more sports (and news) coverage. Once the Olympics are out of the way, “sport” will no doubt revert to its official meaning of football. And we already have wall-to-wall football on the main Scottish radio channels on Saturday afternoons. So, come on BBC Scotland: prove your women-friendly credentials and give us more Janice, less football. Sign the petition if you’d like Janice’s programme to be retained. Thank you.
By Marian Dougan