Pleonasm (Not a Nasal Disorder)

Lately I have been noticing a lot of repetition in both written and spoken English. It strikes me as interesting that a language that favors conciseness has such a strong tendency to repeat itself. There is even a name for this useless wordy verbiage: pleonasm. As usually happens with things, the more I take note of pleonasm, the more it seems to spread. Well, actually, repetitiveness is not becoming more common, it's just that my awareness of it has expanded. For example, just a few days ago someone reminded me not to write "please RSVP" on some invitations, and that very day I received an invitation in the mail requesting that I "please RSVP" for a different event. Not long after that I saw some tuna fish in the store and I couldn't help but wonder: Is anyone not aware that tuna is fish? Then I heard someone preface a comment with: "for all intents and purposes." Therefore, with this barrage of pleonasms on my mind, I have started to wonder which ones are acceptable because of their idiomatic usage and which ones are errors? I mean, trial and tribulation, assault and battery, and cease and desist all seem like well established phrases in our language, and it is interesting to note that those I just thought of all have some sort of legal implication and/or usage. However, phrases like black darkness, repeat again, meet together, and reply back, just seem to me to be erroneous. And another thing: iterate already means to say something repeatedly, so why does everyone say reiterate? It drives me crazy, but reiterate is a valid word. 

So...I'd love to hear from all of you word junkies and language professionals out there regarding this post. When is pleonasm acceptable (in your opinion, or enlighten us with facts)? When do you frown upon repetition or actively seek to use it? Have you heard any other redundantly repetitive expressions lately?

Ebonics and ESL?

     I just read an article called "Watch Your Language" in the most recent edition of Sarah Lawrence College's magazine entitled The Will to Live. Because the college emphasizes and practices teaching through small group lectures, the magazine often features an article based on a partial transcript of the roundtable discussion that takes place between students and professor. This one particularly interested me because it takes on the issue of the Oakland, CA school board's decision to recognize Ebonics, or in linguistic terms African American Vernacular English, as a language, making speakers of Ebonics ESL students in that district.
     Since many of you out there who read my blog are fellow Sarah Lawrence graduates for whom this type of dialogue is natural and/or linguists, translators, and language instructors who thrive on matters of the tongue, I thought that it would be brain candy to get a discussion going. I have posted the short two-page article here for you to read, as well as links to the Sarah Lawrence magazine website. Read up if you're interested. Then, post your ideas here. Are Ebonics and English distinct languages? Is it appropriate to educate Ebonics speakers as ESL students?

Dose spilling rilly mater?

Poor grammar and spelling mistakes are two things that I am apt to notice right off the bat. Even my fiancé, who isn't nearly as nit-picky or sensitive to language variation as I am, complains rather frequently about how often he encounters spelling errors in his day-to-day business and personal correspondence. Why is this? Have we gotten so lazy about communication and taken our casual  channels of communication, like email, twitter, Facebook, and IM, to such an extreme that we don't even care if our language is correct as long as it is communicative.
     Most of us have seen this well-circulated example of how our brains can comprehend a passage even if every word is spelled incorrectly: "Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteers be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe."
     It is an interesting cognitive ability, yet when we refer to it in terms of the importance of spelling, you must take into account the many years of schooling we have all had to get to where we are now. If we didn't already have a solid knowledge of spelling, would we still be able to comprehend the passage above? If we all forsake spelling rules and begin writing carelessly, will our English still be the same language in a few generations?
      I read an article today on FinancialTimes.com called If You Want a Job, Learn Your It's and Its. It's an extremely interesting article that I'd suggest you read. The author, Michael Skapinker, quotes several employers who claim that they would not hire someone who made spelling errors such as confusing "it's" with "its" or "they're" for "there" or "their." These employers are skeptical about such a person's ability to pay attention to details on other tasks, as well as the cause of their inability to straighten these problems out in the twenty plus years prior to seeking work at the companies in question.
     As a translator, I am a writer and a lover of language, so spelling errors often feel like garlic to my inner writer vampire. Maybe we can raise awareness and help some people correct their "your" and "you're" usage! Okay, probably not, but at least we can laugh! Besides the few examples I mentioned here, what are some of the other most frustratingly common spelling mistakes (in English or Spanish) that you see around? Comment below and let's get a conversation and a good laugh going!

Value Isn't Real

     Value is how much someone will pay for something, but it is constantly changing. If a simple plastic bottle of water is worth $0.89 in a bulk package at Albertsons, $1.29 at a gas station down the road, $4.00 at the movie theater, $5.00 at Disneyland, $12.00 at the top of Machu Picchu, and nothing at all if it is lying on the sidewalk, what is the true value of that bottle of water? The truth is that it has no value because value isn't real. What is real is our desire for the product or service in question. Do I want it badly enough to buy it here and now or can I wait?

     This picture got me thinking about cross-cultural value. At first it's just funny to see the two different prices on the same sign for the exact same product the only difference being the languages in which the product is marketed. When you think again, though, monetary value is extremely subjective. What we spend our money on and what things and services we covet are very culturally-specific. Whether you would spend your extra money on some new rims, a gift for someone, an outing for the family, some food, or a manicure, and how much you would spend on these items...these are decisions that are positively dripping with cultural background.

      So, I understand this sign a bit better from the cultural perspective. But I am definitely going to speak Spanish when I go shopping there!

    

"This She-Wolf Is a Reward to My Kinsman."

Did you think the first known sentence in the history of the English language would be more romantic? Perhaps something like, "Thou hath killeth my father henceforth I whilst killeth you!"? Or more practical, like, "Churneth thou butter with more haste, woman!" Nope. According to Bill Bryson in The Mother Tongue, "This she-wolf is a reward to my kinsman," is the first known example of Anglo-Saxon writing in Britan. Hmm. Apparently it was inscribed on a small medallion about the size of a fifty-cent coin and was found three decades ago buried in a field. It seems that back then the payback policy wasn't you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours, bro; it was you help me work my fields and I'll give you a wild killer female dog that will scratch you all over and it even has a gift tag, bro. Interesting. Although, if the Anglo-Saxons defined she-wolf in any way resembling Shakira's definition, that might not have been so bad. Anyway, The Mother Tongue is so full of interesting facts and details about English that it sent me on a web search to see what else I could find out there about the origins of my mother tongue (and my mother's tongue). One of the results was this hilarious cartoon version of the history of English, which I think linguists, clients, and friends alike will appreciate and perhaps even learn from:

Swordfish II CAT tool by Philippa

3-minute review of Swordfish II CAT tool by Philippa http://blog.philippahammond.net/2011/03/04/3-minute-review-of-swordfish-ii-cat-tool/ As part of my professional certification program in Spanish/English translation at UC San Diego, I was asked to do some reading on other translation bloggers' sites. I thought that I would share my thoughts on one of those articles here. The bloggers name is Philippa, and this is her blog:http://blog.philippahammond.net. I chose to read this article about Swordfish II because I have been really interested in CAT tools lately, and I have been trying to decide if I should invest in one or just use free ones for now. This article was a review of the Computer Assisted Translation (CAT) program Swordfish II. The blogger wrote her own personal review of its features and capabilities as well as her reactions as a professional translator. The author organized her review into the following sections: flexibility, file formats, layout, terminology search integrations, verdict, and downsides. I will organize my summary and reactions by section, so that I summarize and react to each of her sections in one paragraph, and then move on to the next in another paragraph. Let me know if you have any questions! In regard to flexibility, she liked that it is cross-platform, which allows her to use it on any computer; this is something that I didn’t realize was a rarity. She mentions that the license can be transferred between multiple computers, but that it is a bit of a pain to have to always disable and enable again. This is an interesting point that she makes. There are so many logistics to consider before committing to a program like this that I never even imagined. For example, I do have two computers, and it would be annoying to have to always go through the extra steps to enable and disable. However, I am not totally sure that I would need to use a program like this on multiple computers, as I usually use my laptop. It is great to get thinking about these details, though. In the file formats section she wrote that Swordfish can take a very wide variety of file formats, which the program converts to XLIFF to edit and then automatically back to their original format. This is a whole other aspect that I just haven’t had to think about yet. Most of the translations jobs that I have had so far have been in very standard file formats like PPT, word, and excel, but this is another future consideration that seems important to keep in mind. As far as layout, she writes that it is very simple and clean, and the user doesn’t need complicated instructions to use it. This seems especially great to me, as one of the most intimidating parts of thinking of CAT programs like Swordfish is thinking about how much time I imagine it will take me to learn how to use it! Like everyone else, I am so busy and I crave simplicity. The author, Philippa, also mentions that in terms of terminology search integration this CAT is very useful because it can simultaneously search with tools like Linguee, IATE, Google Translate, and Termium Plus while you work. This seems like a very interesting feature because you can avoid having a million screens and tabs open, which can be maddening. As for downsides, she says it can be on the slow side. Seeing as I am new to CATs, I am not really sure just how slow slow is, or how long it would take me to build up a big enough TM to worry about that. Philippa’s verdict is that, “The PC version of Swordfish could certainly run a lot faster than it does, but the program does offer a very great deal for its relatively small price tag, and I think it has the edge on cross-platform interoperability. Its integration of the main online terminology search tools makes it feel like a ‘translator’s translation tool’. The support offered is also extremely responsive, in my experience.” Overall, I thought that her review was really useful, practical, and comprehensive. Finally, she added a link about getting a free trial, which I think I just may do! (30-day free trial. See www.maxprograms.com for more screenshots and details.)

2012 Translation Resolution

Happy 2012! What are your resolutions for this year? My main personal resolution is to remember to slow down and enjoy my life at least once every day. That means that even in the midst of my busiest days, I have to stop at some point, even if it is just for five or ten minutes, to smile, be grateful, and BE HAPPY. It is working so far. Professionally, I want to spread the word about my services in a much bigger way, using this blog, social media, and my Elance page (if you haven't visited Elance, check out my Elance widget to the right). I just read an article today in which the author commented that as good as a translation is, it always varies from translator to translator and never says exactly what the original text says.I understand the author's point;the very word "translation" implies variance from the original. Yet, is that a negative frustrating thing? The author seems to think so. I, however, disagree. A translator's work is to understand the source text completely and convey it in a new way, in a new language, for a new audience. An exact copy of what is being said wouldn't be desirable in that it would probably not resonate in the same way with the new audience as it did with the original audience. Therefore, a translator must take some license to make choices that convey the original message as accurately as possible FOR THE NEW AUDIENCE and in the new language. What do you think?

The Art of Translation

Translating is a unique art form in that it does not require the formation of original materials, as writing or painting do; however, it is possible that for the same reason the process of translating is an even more delicate type of creation. Not only must the translator be intently focused on capturing the meaning and spirit of the original text, as well as any messages that the author may have conveyed indirectly, but he or she must then imbue this faithful rendition of the original with a new spirit which makes it accessible to a completely different culture and a reader with a very different perspective, background, and thought processes.

Bea Basso, an Italian/English translator who was interviewed by NPR several years ago, commented on the process of vocabulary use in a way that gives it a sort of choose-your-own-adventure mystique: "There is no such thing as a literal translation, by nature of choosing one word or another, you influence the next step." While this is true, a finished translation involves much more than changing words, phrases, sentences and paragraphs from one language to another. Tone, context, punctuation rules and standards, norms for abbreviation usage, target audience, customs, traditions and so much more all become integral aspects of a phenomenal translation. Basso noted this as well: "All of a sudden I was a translator of gestures, traditions, customs, ways of behaving even — how many kisses do you give to people when you enter a room."

Read NPR's interview here.