Take Nina's Word for It

Shop names – who invents them, anyway?

2012-02-13T13:42:00.000+02:00

Just a quickie, before dashing off to the ITA conference in Jerusalem:

Several new shops and eateries have recently opened in the center of Rishon LeZion, in the area that used to house the old central bus station. I walk by at least twice a week, making little mental notes to myself on which shop looks inviting, which one I’d like to try.

One corner shop had me mystified before it opened: judging by the neon sign, I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what it was going to sell: notary services?? Highly unlikely.

Until one day, there it was, open for business: another eatery. A sushi bar. Where on earth did they get the idea for the name? I have half a mind to go in and ask them.

For the non-Hebrew speakers among my readers: ‘’gushpanka” comes from Aramaic, and means official seal.

Two doors away is what my folks used to call a rag shop and nowadays goes by the name of fashion boutique. And rather a pretentious one at that. Called Royal, it features a huge chandelier inside that might not look out of place in a fancy ballroom in Versailles.

About two days after it opened, the L in ROYAL went pfft, leaving the neon sign as ROYA. It’s stayed that way ever since, i.e. for weeks. I took the pic at night, and the light of the chandelier was too bright for my iPhone camera to deal with.

As for the selection of clothes inside – definitely more befitting a rag shop than a royal shop: about the same design and quality you’d find in any market stall.

And now, I have to finish packing my rags and be on my way! TTFN.

Reading and writing again, yay!

2012-01-17T12:28:00.000+02:00

After two months of reading nothing but work-related [badly-written] texts and depressing news items, and writing nothing but work-related [hopefully well-crafted] texts, plus the occasional personal email and status update on Facebook, I am back to real reading and writing. Yay! I'll hold off with the pat on the back, though, until I make some noticeable progress.

Reading:

Grahame Greene, again. This time: The Comedians. Though I'm supplying a link, it contains spoilers so I don't suggest you read it if you plan on reading the book. It was recommended and lent to me by the admirable Noam Sheizaf . Admirable for many reasons, not merely the fact that he's the father of Baby Momo [see pic at end of post], though that of course is a huge feather in his cap, not that he often wears one. "It's like all Grahame Greene novels," Noam warned me. And so it is. The preface itself, pages 5-6, is worth far-more-than its weight in gold. The first two pages had me already rushing to Google/Wikipedia three times, to look up The Tontons Macoute, "Exegi monumentum", and pompes funebres, considerably broadening my general knowledge. And by page 23 I felt an overwhelming need to go back to page 1 and start over, in order to get the pieces of the puzzle straight in my mind, and make sure I was picking up on all the hints.

Okay, so it's going to have a heart-rending end – you know that as soon as you read that Jones is dead (Chapter 1, 5^th line, not exactly a spoiler). What else is new. But it is oh-so-gooood!

Writing:

He/she, or they?

I've been watching episodes of Steven Fry's fascinating series Planet Word . Highly recommend for people in love with language. Or with Fry. Or both. Fry, whose vocabulary is immense, and who must be one of the better users of the English language, seems quite open to change and willing to accept new words, new status of old words, and new usage of existing words, not to mention changes in grammatically accepted structures. In fact, to him, the vitality and constant evolution of language is a thrilling thing in itself.

Shouldn't we translators and editors be more like him? Less sticklers for stiff grammar-and-usage rules, and more open to creative use of language?

In our personal lives, yes, sure. In our daily work we can't always afford to. While you or I may approve of the way your client expresses herself – be she a university prof preparing a paper for publication or a shop owner preparing an ad for the weekend local magazine – you have to keep your target audience in mind. Not all readers will understand or appreciate your client's usage.

The other day my friend L. sent me the following question:

"…So I finally found the time to finish up this really interesting academic article, and something really bothers me. He [the client] keeps mixing "their" with the singular. E.g.:

"This naturally increases one’s commitment to their faith and the group."

I keep correcting him, and I have explained to him that social convention (gender consideration) aside, he can't bend the grammar rules. Am I right to insist? I told him it had to be

"This naturally increases one’s commitment to his or her faith and the group." [you can also use either one of the pronouns, but it must be singular]

Am I right?"

Grammatically, of course she's right. But usage-wise, we can't help it, things change. Attitudes change and the language changes with it.

As it happens, in a recent job I was grappling with the same question. I was translating a booklet from Hebrew to English, and it was full of general descriptions of things people say and do, which, in English, required the use of "he/she", or "they", or "one", or "people". Constantly having to choose between these solutions got really tiresome. So I was tempted to use "their", but my inner grammarian balked...

I recalled that the problem cropped up on the Chicago Manual of Style forum, and after some searching, found it online:

Q. I would swear that I saw a reference in your manual that approved of the use of “their” instead of a gender-biased singular pronoun. For example, “If the user has completed installing the program, they should put the CD-ROM back in the package,” instead of “If the user has completed installing the program, s/he should put the CD-ROM back in the package,” but on your Q&A, you dance around the answer to the question and suggest that you do NOT approve of the singular “their.” Can you tell us what is acceptable?

A. Yes, you saw it at 2.98 (note 9) in the fourteenth edition, but there was some regret at having written it, and we decided to abandon the idea for the fifteenth and sixteenth editions. Though some writers are comfortable with the occasional use of they as a singular pronoun, some are not, and it is better to do the necessary work to recast a sentence or, other options having been exhausted, use he or she. For a fuller discussion of this issue, see paragraph 5.223 in CMOS 16 and the entry for “he or she” under the “Glossary of Problematic Words and Phrases” at paragraph 5.220.

[Copyright: The Chicago Manual of Style]

Bottom line? Suit yourself...

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

As promised, a pic of Noam with Baby Momo:

How to deal with copywriting for competing clients

2011-11-20T15:39:00.000+02:00

How many ways are there to say "this cream will do wonders for you complexion"?

Let me count the ways…

Or better yet, let's not.

Since becoming self-employed, some six years ago, I was approached several times by skincare, toiletries and cosmetics companies to translate their blurb, do copywriting, edit their texts, and so on.

Initially, it was fun. I liked doing the research: going to the drugstore, studying the labels on jars and bottles; reading pretty brochures, and getting samples of lovely scented concoctions.

Actually writing copy was more difficult, psychologically at least. As much as I like my own favorite toiletries, I disapprove in principle of the huge industry that sells illusions to women. You know – all those "promises in a jar" – don't remember which beauty mogul coined that excellent phrase. Though I rather enjoyed the PR & Advertising course I took in my late twenties, I did not last long as a freelance copywriter. With youthful idealism, I felt I was wasting my time and talent on an unworthy goal: What, waste time and creative effort on persuading people to buy Lotion A rather than Lotion B?! How trivial!

Yet here I was, decades later, doing precisely that. Shame on me.

One such project was a mite more "convincing" than others. The company head, with a degree in chemistry, sounded very sincere when he explained that his products were based on organically grown plants in sustainable environments, and that for this and other reasons they were ecologically sound, and any person could use them with a clear conscience. I wrote a deeply-caring text. That was before the full-fledged organic craze, years before every other toiletry product claimed to be organic and therefore automatically good and healthy.

Fast-forward.

Rivers of lotion later, I found myself dealing with three different manufacturers of skincare products. Possibly because it's been established that I've done this sort of work before. Now, suddenly, I am lost for words. Yes, I have a little list. It's called "skincare words.doc" and it currently has sixty-odd entries. But it's of little help. Because all creams and lotions claim to do the same things. They all hydrate, calm, soothe, give you a radiant, glowing complexion, bla bla bla, and so on and so forth. I suppose the trick is to give them alluring new names, inventing words and adjectives along the way. Some companies give their products incredibly long names. Others – like Clinique – go in for puns, like Take The Day Off. I rather like that approach; inject a bit of humor into the green jar or bottle.

Oops, I've strayed from my topic, which was how to deal with different copy for clients with similar products.

Briefly, it's a question of finding a slightly different focus; of addressing a slightly different target audience, if possible; and creating a different image.

Just recently, I translated marketing texts for two competing senior residence chains. The copywriters for the two chains chose a completely different tack:

Copywriter A emphasized the services provided, the experience of the staff, the size of the rooms and the view from the window, if any.

Copywriter B emphasized the social aspect: a place where you'll make new friends, turn a new leaf, find new love and be happy.

But what if the same copywriter were hired by the two competing chains? Could he have done justice to both?...

I guess it depends on the "brief" – on the instructions and guidelines given to the copywriter by the client.

Okay, I finished venting about this topic. No one is forcing me to undertake such jobs. I'll do my best for the current project, then give it a rest.

Of heroes, superheroes and the ICON festival

2011-10-21T11:09:00.000+02:00

Tarzan loved Jane, John Carter loved Dejah Thoris. That was way back in 1912, but theirlove never died, it lives on in us, in the minds of readers. Since then, ClarkKent loved Lois Lane, Han Solo fell for Princess Leia, Rick Deckard chose to be with Rachael,Strider loved Arwen, and on it goes. Love doesn’t only make this world goaround, it makes far away planets and mythical kingdoms go round, too.

Not that there aren’t good sci-fi and fantasy storiesthat have nothing to do with love-and-marriage, horse-and-carriage. Asimov andnumerous others made little or no use of romantic plots. Still, love goes along way to captivating an audience.

A case in point is the recent short story competitionfor the Einat award , as part of the ICON festival .Fifty-five stories were submitted, of which 10 made the short-list, and ofthose, several had romantic themes, to greater or lesser extents. The winner – When WinterEnds ("Besof HaHoref"), by Yoni (f.) Goldstein, was doubtlessly themost romantic of all. Not that this in itself accounts for its winning; thestory has a – forgive the pun – winning quality; it's well-crafted,well-written, and quite obviously not written by a teenager. It is a touchingstory, heart-warming, and, in my opinion, unabashedly romantic.

But let me get back to John Carter. I'm nearly ashamed to say thatI only made his acquaintance recently. As a kid, I devoured every Tarzan comicbook I could lay my hands on (in Hebrew); maybe John Carter's Martian taleshadn't been translated into Hebrew at the time. I found the entire series (inEnglish, of course) on my mother's bookshelves only a few years ago. So far,I've read only the first one – A princess of Mars, of which we have twocopies, two different editions with a different jacket:

John rescuing Dejah from Barsoom Tharks

A more modest visual version of the protagonists

Guys, let me tell you – John Carter puts to shame Jason Bourne andIndiana Jones combined! In 159 pages of tight, old-fashioned English, he packsin adventure after adventure, fights and narrow escapes, acts of cunning,courage and daring. Not to mention falling in love with and rescuing thebeautiful and brave Princess of Helium, Dejah Thoris.

Some things change, some don't. Plots have become moresophisticated, violence more graphic, characters less chivalrous. But whetheron Earth or in faraway galaxies, love remains. Amen.

When not to rewrite

2011-10-09T12:28:00.001+02:00

In recent months I was involved in two projects where I itched to improve the original writing. One was a non-fiction book about the bible and its interpretation; the other was the memoirs of a Jewish man who lived in Poland and Russia during World War II and survived to tell the tale – and what a tale it is!

In the first book, which I shall call BAIT (the Bible As I see It), I was asked to translate a couple of chapters from Hebrew to English, with the intent of sending the sample to a publisher abroad who had expressed an interest.

The second book, which I shall call J's Memoirs, was originally written in Polish, then translated into English and edited (sort of); I was asked to do further editing, mainly with regard to all the "weird" Polish names.

In both cases, I was tempted to do far more than I was asked, and in both cases, the client put a definite damper on me.

Case #1 – BAIT

The writer, an elderly gentleman, came from a religious family, but early on in childhood became disenchanted with the god known as Jehovah and would have nothing further to do with him. Nonetheless, later on in life he found himself drawn to the Bible and read it very carefully, trying to figure out its power over people, and to what extent it should be taken at face value. A huge, ambitious attempt, to be sure; one which he approached with gusto, a critical eye and ear, and considerable imagination.

The two chapters I read and translated were unusual, unorthodox, interesting, and at times funny. But one thing was very clear: the author was not an accomplished writer, and if he wanted to hook a publisher, the two chapters would benefit greatly (in my opinion) from some polishing.

How presumptuous of me!

The client, upon reading my first draft, foamed at the mouth. How dare I put words in his mouth, and add a sentence that wasn't in the Hebrew, and change his words! I was merely a translator, and my job was simply to convert his Hebrew text into correct English – no more, no less.With ill grace he accepted a few changes I proposed on the grounds that the non-Israeli, non-Jewish reader might misunderstand. Any other improvements of his prose were contemptuously thrown out the window.Last I heard, he hadn't found a publisher.

Case#2 – J's Story

The story itself was fascinating, if you ignore the beginning that describes in detail the layout of J's family home, the neighbors, the aunts and uncles, etc. J didn't have to invent any adventures or quirky characters to make his story interesting. His struggle to survive during the war comes through in his short, matter-of-fact sentences. He does not hypothesize or philosophize, he just tells it as it is, or was. Like the author of BAIT, he was not especially good with words, not a born storyteller. It would have been more "fun" for me, more "creative", to add some color to his prose, to make his sentences more elegant or sophisticated. But his widow said a flat "no": she wanted to maintain the authenticity of her husband's voice. I was expected to correct the grammar where necessary, add the absolute minimum of clarification, and make sure the English spelling of Polish names was logical and consistent. We also agreed which names had to be left in their original Polish spelling, e.g. Janusz Korczak, Wladyslaw Gomulka, Grzegorz Dzierzgowski, and others. But, considering that the target audience was mostly the writer's American family, there was no justification for maintaining the Polish spellings of names of Jewish writers such as Sholom Aleichem or David Frishman.Another consideration, of course, was how members of the family currently spell their name; if a branch of the family spells its name Brodecki, say, rather than Brodetsky, so be it.

Moral of the story: Before you embark on heavy editing or rewriting, make sure you know what the client wants and expects, and-- preferably -- why.

The Case of the Odd Client

2011-09-30T16:53:00.000+03:00

Case #1 – Danny (real name, as far as I know)
Shame I didn't save the actual email, but the gist of it was, that there's some guy out there called Danny (maybe), who needs something translated. Plus a mobile phone number, which I wouldn't dream of calling without a bit more information. What's his surname? Where did he find or get my name and email address, what is it all about – looks like it didn't occur to him all these are details worth mentioning.

My initial reaction in such cases are to educate the guy; send him an email explaining that in order to help him I need more information. And that it's common courtesy to at least sign with your full name. But he got to me on a day when I was busy and tired. I just deleted the message. I hope that whoever ended up helping him also took the trouble to enlighten the guy about better ways of approaching a service provider, or any other person, for that matter.

Case #2 -- Ms. Biostory (obviously a name I made up, but the story is real)
Ms. Biostory was referred to me by a colleague. Her line of business is writing people's autobiographies. I don't think it's ghostwriting – I think people either give her their written or recorded memoirs, or else tell her their life stories, which she then transforms into a book. She wanted a price quote for translating one such manuscript from Hebrew into English. Since the manuscript was 60 units (15000 words) long, I estimated that in English it would come to at least 80 units, and gave a price quote for 85 units tops, to be on the safe side.

The email I received in response was one of the shortest and rudest I ever got, something along the lines of "You must be crazy! I got far lower quotes." My daughter said I could either ignore her email, or just shrug it off with a "take it or leave it" reply. Instead, I told her I found her reply impolite, and proceeded to explain my calculation, the main point being: if the other – far lower – quotes were a result of lower per-unit rates, that's fine with me; every translator is free to charge whatever he/she sees fit. But if the lower quotes were based on the Hebrew word-count, then the client will be in for a nasty surprise when the final word count of the English translator ends up being 20,000 or more. I find it hard to believe that any serious translator would choose to ignore the expansion of the translated text; it would be more honest to take the expansion into account, then charge a low per-word or per-unit fee in an attempt to beat the competition.
Be that as it may, I hope the end-client, i.e. the subject of the autobiography, is getting her money's worth.

On that happy note: Shana Tova to all!

How not to write and mail a CV

2011-08-18T17:00:00.001+03:00

In recent months I had occasion to read, translate and/or edit a good number of CVs of professionals in the fields of writing, education, hi-tech, translation, and more. A few were superbly written and formatted. But most suffered from at least one problem. I've addressed this issue before, in my post "Who cares when you were born" (published May 2008). But it's been a while, I have a few more suggestions, and the subject is worthy of re-addressing. So here goes:

DO NOT name your file CV-translator.doc, or CV-English.doc . Isn't this obvious? With so many of you giving your file the exact same name, how is the employer or agency to know which is which?
Always check File > Properties and include ONLY relevant information. You'd be surprised what the Properties tab can reveal about you.
Sign your cover letter/email with your full name rather than "Best regards, Moshik"
Avoid adding cute but irrelevant hobbies or studies that are there just to show off that you're a well-rounded personality rather than the stale bookish sort. The fact that you studied acupuncture in China has little to do with the skills required of a magazine editor, unless the magazine is all about acupuncture.
Unless absolutely necessary or relevant, do not include your marital status and number of kids. It's no one's business. Definitely do not write "Mother of one wonderful son / talented daughter"; you're applying for a job, not a matchmaker's list of eligibles.
Avoid cutesy graphics under your name/signature /name and address. Unless you're applying as a graphic artist for illustrating kids' books.
Update your CV before sending it! Sending a CV in August 2011 with a file name March 2008 is not very attractive. Even if the changes in the text itself are minute, change the date of the file.
Do you really think your potential employer cares when your birthday is and how many kids you have? True, some companies, especially Israeli manpower agencies (hevrot hasama) demand that you write all those details up-front, including your ID number, army ID number, car registration number, national insurance code, which health fund you belong to, your shoe size and your preference in muffins (crucial to stocking the company kitchenette.) But for most positions, these details are irrelevant and have no place on your CV. If you insist – relegate them to the end. (If you failed to impress the prospective employer, maybe he won't read to the bitter end.)
Do not add links to your blog about your grandchildren, dogs, cats, cupcake baking, knitting, etc. It is irrelevant and unprofessional. (Unless you're applying for a job dealing with precisely these subjects.)
Good luck!

Crimes and Misdemeanors – a random collection

2011-08-17T12:30:00.000+03:00

Well, perhaps small crimes – against the language – and misdemeanors; the latter referring to writers’ not bothering to self-edit, proofread their work, and/or look up certain words and phrases.

I make allowances for bloggers (including myself, tee-hee), dyslectics, and plain old scatterbrains (again – like me.) Most bloggers I follow are quite strict with themselves and painstaking with their posts. As I’ve said before, a blog is neither a term paper nor a thesis and you write it and “get it out there” without too much delay, striking while the thought is fresh in your mind, the topic topical and your fingers itchy.

So here are some crimes against language that I came across recently:

A Supergas leaflet (in Hebrew) offering travel/vacation-related items on discount, showed pics of bags, pointing out that they all have ידיות נסיעה … Merely transliterating does not quite capture it: yadiot ne’siaa. As spelled in the leaflet, it means "travel handles"; whereas the correct spelling of the idiomatic phrase, ידיות נשיאה , means carrying handles.
A bottle of Neutragena Sesame Body Oil has a Hebrew label stuck on top of the original English instructions for use. After applying the oil, you should pat your body lightly with a towel rather than rub it off, is the general idea. The Hebrew says you should dry yourself בתפיחות מגבת… In transliteration: be’tefihot magevet. But the Hebrew misspelling makes it meaninglessly funny, something like “with a puffing/swollen towel.
I actually wrote to the Israeli distributor, who said they were made aware of the mistake after the printing, and will correct it in the next printing. No idea how often they print these labels, of course.
Several weeks ago, a terrible road accident occurred: A young couple whose car had a flat tire pulled over to change the tire, and were hit and killed by a passing truck, whose driver stopped briefly then fled the scene. The police issued a statement calling on citizens who may have witnessed the accident or seen the truck to come forward, describing the vehicle (in the Jerusalem Post) as… “… a truck with a white crate.” Perplexed? The Hebrew-to-English translator obviously wasn’t familiar with the Hebrew expression argaz (literally, box or crate) which refers to the body of the truck (as opposed to the driver’s cabin.) Since this news items appeared on the front page, I’d have expected the copy editor to catch it.

What to read in a house full of books

2011-07-02T15:01:00.000+03:00

Reading ads and picking on small-but-annoying mistakes (I have one of those with me today, too) is not the only thing I do for fun. I also read real, entire books. My problem is usually which book to read. My home library is an amalgam of my family's taste, and that covers quite a range, including – but not limited to – history, fantasy & sci-fi, thrillers, plays, popular science, and more. Mostly in English. Some I inherited from my parents; some my kids left behind when they flew the coop; some I received as gifts, rescued from being thrown out by neighbors, or bought at airports and bookshops around the world like Feltrinelli (Italy) and Waterstone's (UK), to name a few.

These days, however, I'm surrounded by a whole new collection, mostly in Hebrew but also in French and English: the library of my daughter Daria and her life-partner Noam. Not that I haven't visited their rented Tel Aviv apartment before; but these were on the whole brief, purposeful visits that didn't leave me much time for browsing the packed bookshelves. But if you've been following the vicissitudes of my life to any extent, you can't have missed the fact that I have recently become a grandmother. As such, I've had the privilege of pacing the couple's living room for hours, infant in arms, humming silly things like Ah-ah baby, Mummy is a lady, Daddy is a gentleman, and Momo is my baby. No rule that says I can't scan the bookshelves as I pace. Or, when my arms get tired, I can pass Baby to Grandpa, freeing my hands to actually take books off the shelf and look at them.

I made the decision not to bring the book I'm currently reading (The Book of Ultimate Truths, Robert Rankin) to Momositting sessions. My shoulder bag is heavy enough as it is, and why bring a book to a place that has so many volumes that I don't have at home?

And so it came to pass that I picked up something I've always thought I ought to read:Jack Keruack's On The Road. Unfortunately, it's in Hebrew. Translated by Oded Peled*. And therein lies the problem. I read a sentence, and wonder: What was the English? Why does this sentence sound so stiff? The translator uses the Hebrew word "gruta'a" – I bet the original says "jalopy"; really must check.

Which I did, and indeed the sentence is "Dean… was actually born on the road, when his parents were passing through Salt Lake City in 1926, in a jalopy…"
I end up being tempted to translate a few pages myself, without peeking, to see if there's any way I can make the Hebrew text flow more naturally and easily, as it does in English. Daria had said that she gave up on the book (in the Hebrew version) very early on, and decided to read it in English. As far as I know, she hasn't gotten around to it yet. Maybe when darling Momo starts sleeping through the night. Or through the day. One or the other.

And so, back to my usual kvetching about poor translation of trivial ads.
This one appears in Friday's (July 1st) Jerusalem Post special Active supplement, and sounds quite okay, except for one offending word. The English text, referring to wheat crackers with the "original" name Crispiot, says, inter alia:

"Crispiot are crisps made of 100% puffed wheat, which is rich in nutritional fibers."

Yes, dear translator; in Hebrew the expression is sivim tezunatyim, in the plural. But in English it's fiber, not fibers. Fibers are what material is made of, for instance. Besides, if you check the original English label of any foodstuff containing fiber, the "nutritional" is implicit; or else it's referred to as "dietary fiber". Or who knows – maybe you wrote it correctly, but a know-it-all Israeli editor thought he/she knew better…

Bon appétit, all; remember to include fiber in your diet.

___________________________________
* Some people liked Oded Peled's translation. Scroll down the article , because most of it refers to Shaul Levin's translation of The Original Scroll version.

Welcome to Vanity Fair 2011

2011-06-21T16:30:00.001+03:00

For weeks now, the newspapers have been carrying huge, full-page ads for Beauty City , an event(?) that will take place at Tel Aviv's fairgrounds, officially called The Israel Trade Fairs Center, (Merkaz HaYeridim @ Ganei HaTa'arucha, June 22-24, 2011.

For a token(?) entrance fee of NIS 30, women (well, I bet it'll be mostly women) will be awash in a sea of cosmetics and toiletries of every brand and kind. Heavily made-up sales representatives will probably be offering free makeovers, cute sachets of samples, and tempting(?) discounts. You know, the kind that make all the difference in the world: A 30-shekel cream sold for 20 shekels, and a superior(?) 800 shekel cream on special for "only" 600. Or maybe buy three, spend an arm and a leg, get one free, it'll come in handy instead of that missing arm or leg.

Hey, listen, I love wandering in the scented aisles of the Perfumery & Magic-Potion section of malls and duty-free shops. I inhale deeply, pick up pretty jars, read some ingredients and pipe-dream promises, appreciate the good copywriting and sneer at the bad texts. I consider the significant difference between Autumn Rose, Dusty Pink, and Plum Surprise shades of lipstick and their possible contribution to my general appearance and attractiveness. I hesitate between Desert Beige and Sandy Peach shades of powder for my reddish nose. I lament the fact that I can no longer use mascara because my eyes object in no uncertain terms and my skin reacts with a rash to anything more scented than baby soap. Then I sigh, pick up an unscented facial moisturizer with SPF 30, queue up, pay and leave.

"Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity."
Ecclesiastes 1:2

Down with Awful Copywriting – Example 4

2011-06-19T19:30:00.000+03:00

Local car importers/distributors strike again.
Or rather, strike out again.

Yet another Israeli advertising agency has blundered.

The ad in question this time is for Fiat 500. Cute little car; there's one parked on our street. Looks perfect as a runabout for errands in and around the city and parking in tight places. No, I do not think it would be the first choice of some Italian contessa or principessa.

The ad in question bears the title: BEAUTIFUL. ITALIAN.
Beneath which is a photo of a bejeweled, prettyish woman, supposedly Italian looking, supposedly with a seductive expression and finger-to-lip sexiness.

At the bottom right is the toy itself, which looks – due to the angle and proportions of the illustration – as if it would barely accommodate two of Snow White's dwarfs. (They were chubby, you will recall; at least in the Disney version, which is what most of us recall.)

Bottom left is the horrendous copy, translated literally from trite, ill-conceived Hebrew copy. I'll spare you the pain and just give you the questionable beginning and the flawed end:

"The Italian beauty will attract you. It's hypnotizing. It's overpowering.
[7 more lines of bla bla, yadda yadda] … which combines beauty with character. With the company of a gorgeous Italian..." [Hint hint, nudge nudge, say no more!]

Did they by any chance mean "in the company of a gorgeous Italian"? Who knows.

Just compare that fatuous babble with the less pretentious, spot-on description of the car on the official Fiat site in Hebrew; briefly, it says "it warms the cockles of your heart and brings a smile to your face."

Down with Awful Copywriting – Example 3

2011-06-18T18:04:00.000+03:00

Weeks ago, I saw a full page ad, in English, for the new VW Passat: run-of-the-mill looking car in an empty street of a nameless, gold-colored foreign city. Okay. I can live with that. Boring, unimaginative, but not offensive.

The title-slogan says:

The new Passat.
It gets into you.

Huh?
What on earth got into them? What did they mean by that?

Google to the rescue. Seems there's this clip, the brainchild of one of Israel's largest advertising agencies, that's presented as an example of Israeli advertising at its best.

I watched the clip. I've seen better, I've seen worse.
But the telltale error of their ways is revealed at the tail end.

The voiceover says: The new VW Passat. It gets into you.
And the Hebrew subtitles read (I transliterate): hee mashpi'ah aleicha.
Which means, gentlemen, it gets to you.
Vive la difference.

And this, dear readers, is a true representative sample of Israeli car advertising at its typical blundering "best".

BTW: This ad's rating on the above-mentioned site is 8.8/10, gained through a very generous 19 votes. I wonder how many of the voters were native English speakers. (I bet none were finicky editors or QA people.)

The clip also appears on YouTube, but without the Hebrew subtitles which give it away.

Down with Awful Copywriting – Example 2

2011-06-13T16:30:00.002+03:00

Cars. They are so much more than just a biggish, expensive device to get you from A to B. And competition is fierce. So naturally manufacturers pour a lot of money into outdoing each other with creative ads.

All this effort goes down the drain by the time the ads make it to Israel, and the local importer/distributor asks his advertising agency to make a Hebrew version of the ad.
More often than not, the agency apparently decides that the ad created for Europe or North America simply won't work in Israel, and opts for a made-for-the-average-Israeli-macho version.

The results range from acceptable to lame to downright awful.

Example? With [dis]pleasure.

Go to the Volvo XC90 page and click on the link 5 Things to Know.

That's just plain good marketing writing; nothing extravagant. Tells you good things about the car. That's for the sake of background information.

Then Google "Volvo XC90 ads" and look at a few. The artwork is beautiful and the slogan is simple: Life is Lived Better Together.

Or if you want the humorous version, try this.

Now, if you have a Hebrew daily handy, look at the ad that's been running in Hebrew papers for weeks. The Hebrew text is low-brow, crass and coarse, which is bad enough. The English translation is … I can't think of a suitable adjective: Unprofessional. Literal. Yuck. Blargh. It doesn't even capture the spirit of the Hebrew. (I don't know if that's good or bad, in this case!) See below: (The text of the ad is all upper case; not my doing.)

YOU HIT THE ACCELERATOR AND DON'T BELIEVE IT, 3.2 LITERS MOBILIZE TO PROVIDE YOU WITH 238 HORSEPOWER. YOU LOOK BEHIND YOU AND DON'T BELIEVE IT, THERE ARE SEVEN SEATS. YOU GET INTO THE CAR, AND YOU DON'T BELIEVE THE AMOUNT OF PAMPERING FEATURES [SIC!]. YOU READ ABOUT THIS OFFER AND YOU REALIZE THIS IS AN OPPORTUNITY WHICH WON'T REPEAT ITSELF.

Sadly, this "opportunity" has been repeating itself for weeks.

Down with Awful Copywriting

2011-06-12T17:26:00.000+03:00

Baby-leasing or hair styling?

Those were the two options that crossed my mind when I first saw the name of the luxury accommodations offered to new moms by Lis Maternity Hospital in Tel Aviv.

Babylis. I ask you!

Okay, so it's a challenge for the copywriter to think up a pithy name for it. So give the task to an imaginative, creative person. I happen to know we have several here in Israel.
The word "bliss" just begs to be used in this context, at the risk of slipping down the slippery slope of mushy-mushy.

The name Babyliss, pronounced in Hebrew (at least in my teens) bah-bee-lees, was one of the first I heard in the world of hair coiffing, when my friends and I had our hair done every Friday afternoon, in time for Friday night's party. Girls like me, with straight hair, had their hair put up in rollers to give them "volume", while girls with curly-to-kinky hair spent hours straightening their locks with bahbeelees.

As pronounced in Hebrew, the name Baby Lis sounds alarmingly like "baby-lease", and you're left wondering how it works: Can you lease your baby to someone who is babyless and wants one for an afternoon stroll, to show off in the park? If you're in need of a baby, can you apply to Baby Lis and get one on lease for a limited period?...

As for the place itself, though my eldest is at the moment there with her partner and exquisite (naturally!) newborn baby boy, I haven't been there yet, so can't vouch for its being luxurious. A luxury in terms of cost it definitely is.

To my daughter Daria, and everyone else at Lis Maternity Hotel: Mazal Tov, Congrats, enjoy your stay!

Of Nightmares and Travel Guides

2011-05-28T11:40:00.000+03:00

As usual, I had a hard time deciding what books to take with me on my trip. I had quite a stack on the table, and Daniel helped me finally narrow it down to two:

Frederik Pohl – Alternating Currents (short stories), and Robert Rankin – The Book of Ultimate Truths. The first being smaller and lighter, I thought I might read it en route, and so packed it in a safe and sensible place in the carry-on trolley, so it would be easy to get at. So naturally I couldn’t for the life of me find it, and had to start reading the Rankin which had been casually thrown in among the clothes in the big suitcase. But before I could get very far, Michael finished the book he was reading, and so appropriated Rankin, while, by sheer chance, Pohl turned up.

Not that I had much time for reading; and when I did read, my first priority was the excellent travel guide we brought along (amply mentioned in my travel blog) by Rick Steves & Cameron Hewitt. Disappointed with the scant choice of travel guides in English on Slovenia & Croatia at local shops (Steimatzki and Lametayel), Michael turned to Amazon.com and ordered 2 books that seemed promising . The Rick Steves one made good on that promise: not only does it give detailed and reliable information on everything from where to stay, what to wear and which ice cream is best, but it's also entertaining reading; these writers definitely have a way with words. (When was the last time you guffawed while reading a Michelin guide-book?)

But at bedtime, Steves was abandoned in favor of Pohl.

Big mistake?...

The first story, Happy Birthday, Dear Jesus, with its focus on consumerism gone mad, reminded me of The Midas Plague, in Pohl's collection The Case Against Tomorrow. In both, the problem of over-consuming is not solved on a global level; but individuals, at least, find a way around it, so in that sense at least it has a happy end.

The second story, Ghost Maker, is a bit morbid, and the protagonist gets his comeuppance with a twist… Keep that in mind when dealing with ghosts and ghost-makers.

The third story, Let the Ants Try, is a downright horror story and a dire dystopia. I think the mere title gave me the creeps; I sort of suspected the ants would win the day, to the detriment of mankind. It was the sort of story to give me nightmares. Luckily, my felicitous travel experiences overcame the imaginary horror, and my crazy dreams were on the happy side.

Pythias, a story of pride and the dangers of absolute power, sent me running (well, clicking, more like) to Wikipedia, ashamed of my ignorance. Wow! Did you know she was Aristotle's first wife? Together, Aristotle and Pythias had a daughter, also named Pythias. This Pythias married three times. I bet their story is at least as interesting as this specific story by Pohl, and probably more so.

The Mapmakers is about being lost in space. Yes, the spaceship Terra II gets back safely. That isn't really a spoiler, because how they find their way back is the unexpected bit.

Rafferty's Reasons is plain depressing in an Orwellian way, with echoes of Animal Farm, 1984, and perhaps some Camus thrown in, I'm not sure. If this story is any indication of the shape of things to come, then we all have very good reason to rebel.

Target One is one of those time-warp/alternate history stories where the protagonists naively think that if they only change or prevent one significant event, history will be the better for it. Well, naturally we're not that naïve, we know that change happens with or without a certain great personality. We sci-fi readers know that messing with history more often than not screws things up even worse…

Grandy Devil – ah, at last a whimsical, humorous story! Not without its dark side, but not nightmare material.

The Tunnel Under the World is my favorite story in this collection. It starts out with a bang and ends in a whimper, but that's not a bad thing, in this case. The nightmare begins early on, the protagonist is trapped, feels that something terrible is going on (the doings of Martians? The Russians?) and decides to fight it, run for freedom, get help. As his attempt is foiled, the twist in the plot reveals itself… Which is why I'll clam up and say no more. Go ahead, read it, I dare you.

What To Do Till The Analyst Comes (last story) suffers from a bit of obvious preachiness. It, too, reeks of doom; not by the hands of aliens but by our own laziness, in a Lotus Eaters kind of way.

As for the Rankin book – I am reserving judgment, since I am only on page 37 out of 347. All I can say is that so far I'm having a hard time following what's going on. (Daniel did warn me it was weird.) I peeked at readers' opinions online and got the impression that Rankin is an acquired taste.

Dober dan, kje je vece?

2011-05-06T19:20:00.000+03:00

Vece, I said vece, didn't I? I meant WC, of course. For zenski. With a squiggle on top of the z. That's what it says in the section "Slovenian Survival Phrases" at the end of the guide book.

I started reading that glossary the day before our trip, but somehow nothing sank in. Except perhaps Ja and Ne. Some other words sounded vaguely familiar, like "dobro", meaning good, which sounds like the Polish word "dobre", which I heard often in my schooldays from my Polish speaking friends and their families. And "Na svidenje", meaning goodbye, which sounds a lot like its Russian counterpart, "Dasvidaniya" (please ignore spelling.) But other than that, I seemed to bump against a wall, or mental block.

How can I call myself a linguist if I can only manage mildly-foreign languages such as French, Spanish and Italian? The moment things get a bit tricky, I'm lost. In Portugal, it was the pronunciation rather than the vocabulary that killed me. Here it's both. All those impossible consonant clusters!

Before our first trip to Greece many years ago, I made a point of studying the Greek alphabet, so that I could read the signs. It did help. Here in Slovenia, the alphabet is familiar, I even know how to pronounce the c and the z with and without the "chupchik", but it all comes to naught when we're driving along the highway at 130 km/h and a sign looms with a list of half a dozen destinations, all with impossible names, and is gone within a blink.

One major mistake was not learning the names of the cardinal directions. A hit-and-miss attitude to directions is bound to result in trouble... And there is absolutely no way you can guess: North = Sever, South = Jug, East = Vzhod, West = Zahod. I couldn't think of a single mnemonic for any of them. Sever made me think of the river Severn; "Jug" made me think of the jugular vein and vampires; Vzhod looks to me like total gibberish; and Zahod brings to mind the delightful(?) Zaphod Beeblebrox which, you'll agree, is not a very helpful association.

Today, for instance, on our way to catch a train in the middle of nowhere, we were stopped because of road works. We tried to explain that we have a train to catch, even resorting to mimicry and "choo-choo", but the guy with the beret and red-and-green lanterns just shrugged.

By the time I've mastered a few basic words in Slovenian, we'll be in Croatia. Anyone have any helpful hints???

For more stories of our Slovenia & Croatia adventures, see my travel blog:
http://nina-makes-tracks.blogspot.com/

Meantime, adijo! Vidiva se kasneje gori v pubu :-)

Is graphology still relevant?

2011-04-09T22:05:00.000+03:00

Some may say it never was; they lump it together with card tricks, astrology, palmistry and other trivial pursuits. But handwriting analysis as practiced by serious, well-educated professionals is neither a party-trick nor trivial. At its best, it can help identify forgeries and questioned documents, and serves as a worthwhile complementary tool in personality evaluation. At its worst, when practiced by charlatans, it is indeed worthless; when practiced by professionals it might fall short of expectations.

And who am I to make such statements about graphology? Years ago, I worked for one of the best, if not the best, handwriting analyst that ever lived in Israel: the late Dr. Aryeh Naftali. [Photo copyright: the Naftali family.]

I got to thinking of him last weekend, when the J. Post carried an interview with his daughter and successor, Michal Naftali. Not that I needed any reminding. Things that I learnt from Dr. Naftali, affectionately called "Abba" (Dad) even in the office, are with me constantly. For example, the relaxation exercises which he taught me, and which I practice nearly every day. What does that have to do with handwriting analysis? Probably nothing; but Dr. Naftali was far more than a handwriting analyst; among other things, he was a doctor of medicine who believed in the healing power of relaxation exercises, sphincter muscle exercises (the Paula Garbourg method), breathing and developing proper vocal technique.

I'm sorry I can't give you a link to the article by Larry Derfner; searching for it shows that it's in the paper's Premium Zone, i.e. for paying customers only. As an aside: I have no idea whether Derfner interviewed Michal in Hebrew or in English; I assume his Hebrew is good by now, and Michal (a classmate of mine at Tel Aviv University) always had a good command of English; nonetheless, a few expressions in the text sounded very much like literal translation from Hebrew. But that's neither here nor there.

Back to graphology. Dr. Naftali, bless him, hired me on the strength of a sample of my handwriting, and despite what he saw in it. As he dictated to me (remember, this was way back when, well before personal computers), he used to sometimes comment half-jokingly on my handwriting: "I gather you had a good night's sleep? You're very focused and relaxed today." Or: "What's wrong, Nina? Aren't you feeling well?"

When I was agonizing over my separation from Husband No. 1, considering divorce, Dr. Naftali examined my husband's handwriting, and gave me the straight dope: This man is (a), (b) and (c). He's not very likely to change in this respect. It's up to you: are you willing and able to live with these aspects of his personality? He didn't really tell me anything I didn't know about my husband. But he sure put things in perspective.

And now for my question: Is graphology still relevant? I ask because to some extent, I feel it has lost its power, through no intrinsic fault of its own. The reason is our addiction to typing… Most of us hardly write by hand anymore, aside from scribbling a note here and there. We use our fingers to "text" (SMS, or "lesames", to Israelis) and to type. When we do occasionally have to hand-write anything, our fingers feel stiff, and the handwriting comes out sloppy, the letters not as well-formed as they used to be.

This isn't true, of course, of all people. Some are less affected than others. If a graphologist is analyzing the handwriting of a hi-tech person or a university professor, chances are their handwriting has deteriorated. But if the analyzed sample belongs to a person whose vocation and avocation don't call for much writing, be it by hand or by keyboard, then I suppose his/her handwriting is the same as it ever was or would be.

I assume professionals like Michal Naftali and her brother Jonathan are well aware of these factors, and compensate for them, to the extent possible, in their analysis. What is "the extent possible"? I have no idea. Maybe I should pick up the phone and ask Michal, since the issue did not come up in the interview.

Naftali Institute of Graphology (Hebrew only)
Naftali Institute of Forensic Graphology

Writing for Hotels

2011-04-01T12:54:00.001+03:00

It's very difficult to write fresh, convincing copy for Israel's hotel industry. Probably for the hotel industry everywhere, but my experience has been mainly with Israeli hotels and resorts.

Whatever you do, it all tends to come out sounding the same… How many different adjectives can you use to describe the "sumptuous" rooms (or meals), the "breathtaking" view, the "sophisticated" equipment in the gym or in the business lounge, and so on?...

The other day I was asked to translate (Hebrew>English) a promotional text about a certain hotel chain I'd never heard of, let's call it The Hercules Heights. Unsurprisingly, the Hebrew text was a disaster: muddled and badly written. Looking for help online, I found that the hotel chain actually had a pretty decent website, written in pretty decent English and employing all the usual suspects -- I mean adjectives -- in a relatively creative way. No idea who wrote it, but someone both professional and imaginative. The website helped me bypass the hurdles of the Hebrew text and produce an acceptable English version. (Thank you, Mysterious Colleague, whoever you are.)

Thursday morning, leafing through the J. Post's Weekend magazine, I came across a one-page promotional text about a different hotel, let's call it The Tantalus Towers. Guess what: it contained nearly the same description as the stuff written about the Hercules. Let me be clear: I am not for a moment suggesting that the writer borrowed text from that, or any other, similar hotel website. It's just that, well, they all use the same phrases… (Actually, it just occurred to me that both texts may have been written by the same writer!)

Be that as it may, it would be nice if we could restrain ourselves and try, from now on, to produce text that's a bit less pretentious and trite:

Try not to go overboard with your praise. Don't exaggerate. Not every view of a bit of sand and sea is "breathtaking" or "spectacular".

Think twice before applying an overly liberal dose of: luxurious, sumptuous, opulent, pampering, sophisticated, innovative, unique, exclusive, etc.

Of course, if your client – the hotel – feels gypped by the tame nature of the adjectives you've chosen, you may have no choice but to recant.

Now, I may be picky, but something bothered me about the penultimate sentence of the article:

"Those wanting a massage can close their eyes, snuggle in a cozy robe and slippers, and listen to the rainforest while sipping hot tea."

Why don't you read it again and try to imagine the scenario: You want a massage. Presumably, you go down to the Spa. You close your eyes, then you lie/sit down in robe and slippers, listen to the rainforest (?), and sip hot tea. End of story.

I wonder whether an editor/proofreader who was in a hurry, or perhaps a layout person, just chopped off a few words in order to make the story fit better on the page (and the hell with logic.)

International Women's Day in Tel Aviv - impressions

2011-03-13T14:46:00.000+02:00

Apparently, this is the 5th Women in Business conference I would have ignored, had I not been specifically invited to attend this year by my entrepreneur daughter. Daria was invited to take part in a four-women panel about – fancy that – women entrepreneurs. I don't get to see Daria give a talk about her enterprise very often, and thought this would be a wonderful opportunity to combine business with pleasure: see Daria do her thing; take a day off routine work; mingle, network, see other women.

Since I don't usually go to conferences other than the ITA's (as I've mentioned in a previous post), I studied the program/agenda carefully to see which lectures I'd like to attend. As far as I could see, the program was available only in Hebrew. No English, no Arabic, no Russian. Hmm. I wonder what that means. I guess it means that if you're a woman doing business in Israel, you had better know Hebrew. Or else.

Let's look at some of the program highlights and see which sessions are worth going to…

09:30- 10 a.m. – Opening, Ron Huldai, mayor of Tel Aviv. Nah, can't be bothered. Too early in the morning. Besides, since when do mayors say anything really interesting in such speeches. I've had the opportunity to edit or translate various mayors' addresses. I could probably write such a speech with one hand tied behind my back. Though that would slow me down, seeing as I'm used to touch-typing.

10 – 10:20 – Prof Gabriela Shalev, From Israel to the UN and Back. Yes, she's good. But I just heard her at the ITA conference, and assume she'll say more or less the same things.

10:20 - 11:05 – Where Are They All? A panel with half a dozen women in high places – a CEO, a judge, and other execs. I have no idea what this panel is supposed to discuss. What's the key issue? Too vague. Not attractive. Skip it. Plan to pick Daria up from Tel Aviv.

Okay, we found parking and went in. As soon as I got my name tag, attached it to my shirt and started "mingling", I realized my mistake: my name tag was useless. I failed to fill in the registration form correctly and, as a result, my name tag carried my name, in Hebrew, twice, and that's all: no hint of my profession, my occupation, or any such info that would be useful to other participants whose path I may cross. Most other women had their company name under their own name. Since I don't have a company, I just entered my name again in that field in the form. I did see one woman who had apparently written "atzma'it" (self-employed) in that field. Daria said I should have written "Take Nina's word for it", since that's my slogan. Even if it didn't ring a bell among that crowd, it might at least evoke some curiosity or interest. So I took my mini Sharpiewhich I always carry with me for just this type of emergency, and added that to my name tag.

This mingling business did not work very well. Women mostly stuck to their own kind. Small groups bearing the same company name (e.g. Sleepless City, eSelling-Stuff, Freshly-Recycled-Ideas-Inc., and so on) clustered closely around the food stalls, queued for quiche, yakking to each other. As far as I could see, my daughter was among the few who actually moved between groups and introduced people to one another. Only later, after her panel appearance, did total strangers come up to her to introduce themselves and establish a new contact.

Elevnish: A Moment after the Oscars – Against All Odds. Ah, at last an experienced speaker who knows exactly the point she wishes to make. Karen Tal, principal of the Bialik-Rogozin school for foreign workers' kids, spoke about her unique venture and about the documentary film Strangers No More, recent Academy Award winner in the "best documentary short subject" category. Very moving subject, well presented.

[Note: There was a bit of a mix-up with the order of the sessions around lunchtime, so I can't vouch for the order of the events, but that's immaterial.]

Next: The Secret World of Women – Julie Shlez, (or Shles, she should make up her mind about it) a film director and producer, creator of a certain Israeli TV docu-drama series that I'm not familiar with. See write-up in Hebrew. Let me know if you think I missed something really good. Maybe I'll watch the sequel.

Brunch: Lots of green leafy things which I ignored. Some greasy, yummy, cheese/pasta dishes; mini desserts. Huge queue for coffee. I drank water.

Now, from 12:45 to 1:50 pm there should have been, according to the program, a talk that sounded very interesting:

I Too Am in it for the Money! Women and negotiations – M. Cristal [sic], CEO and founder of Nest Consulting. Now, this is what I call important! We all know that most women are timid when it comes to asking for money, negotiating salary, demanding to be paid well. So all those leaf-eating ladies would be doing themselves a huge favor to pick up some tips from Motti, or however he spells his name, assuming he has good stuff to offer. But I'll never know :-( The unannounced changes in the schedule meant that I missed it.

Gentle readers – if you attended this session, please report!

Next came the pièce de resistance (for me…) of the conference:
Entrepreneurship, Alive and Kicking: 7 minutes, 4 entrepreneurs (f.), 4 success stories.
Marathon & panel chaired by journalist Tali Heruti-Sover of The Marker.
Gali Ross of Razoss spoke – if I understood correctly – of the importance of having a a support system. I admired her slim figure. (Can't help it. We're brainwashed.)
Makbula Nassar – outspoken, biting radio talk-show host[ess] (in Arabic) on A-Shams radio, was, well, outspoken, energetic and charming.
Yullia Gal, founder of Yullia Spa Express, started her business when she was under twenty and fairly new in the country… But she pulled it off, and her small manicure/pedicure shop blossomed into a chain. She's got a point, you know, with this idea of being able to pop into a place and say, "Hi, I feel like having my nails done; can you fit me in soon?" I only have my nails done about once a year, and I set up that appointment about a month in advance…
Daria Shualy, founder of Sense of Fashion, sporting a 26-week pregnancy, was fourth and last. She seemed the best-prepared for this short talk and presentation. Though she had told me earlier that she's used to giving this presentation in English, it went just as smoothly in Hebrew. (Duh!)

The audience was very attentive, and sent the MC loads of questions. Bet you can't guess what the main thing the audience wanted to know was… (How old are you? Are you married? Do you have kids? Where do you live?)

I'm glad I stayed for the next talk and interview, with Beth Brooke, who is such an amazing personality with so many achievements, that I wouldn't know where to begin to describe her. I'll copy-paste just one statement: "Beth was named three years in a row by Forbes Magazine as one of the “World’s 100 Most Powerful Women” and was named 2009 Woman of the Year by Concern Worldwide." All I can add was that everything she said was eminently sensible and eloquently put. Wish we had more like her.

This is as far as I got. Daria said that the dance/Youtube project YouMake ReMake by dancer-choreographer Renana Raz was beautiful.

If any of you readers stayed on for the last item, the launching of Catalyst, the first [Israeli] project aimed specifically at promoting women in business, please report. I have the glossy, expensive-looking folder and handouts, and glanced at them briefly. Looked like a worthwhile endeavor, meant for you [ladies] and me; and if I'm bored to tears, or trying to procrastinate when I'm supposed to be working, I might even read them more closely.

One last comment: Please look at the homepage for the conference and tell me if the meaningless blurb in its title was really necessary. The Hebrew says:
כנס נשים ועסקים, קנה המידה שלך להצלחה
- Kenes nashim va'assakim, kneh hamida shelach le'hatzlacha
- The women and business conference, your yardstick for success.
Is this how we're supposed to measure our success? By attending the conference, or what?... Did whoever wrote this "slogan" even know what they meant by it?

That's it, folks. Sorry it took so long, both timewise and wordwise. I came away feeling proud of my daughter's accomplishment and pleased with the tiny samples of expensive skincare products of the type I wouldn't buy for myself. Oh, and with one business card of one new contact.

For a different take on this conference or on international women's day, read what my colleagues have to say:

Yael Sela Shapiro [Hebrew] http://transela.com/2011/03/10/my_woman_day_career_soaps/

Neri Livneh, [Hebrew, last year] http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/to-the-international-woman-in-appreciation-1.264110

Ruth Ludlum [English]: http://ruthludlam.blogspot.com/2011/03/international-womens-day-2011.html?spref=fb

The ITA Conference -- Other measures of success

2011-02-12T12:54:00.001+02:00

By now many of my learned colleagues have posted their impressions of the ITA conference on their blogs and websites. For example, you can read Linda Yechiel's report (English); Inga Michaeli's story (Hebrew), Ruth Ludlam's very comprehensive report (English), and several others, which, if they're not actually available yet, doubtlessly will be within the next few days. So you don't need a blow-by-blow description of the lectures from me.

Which lets me off the hook, freeing me to address the conference from a different angle.

1. From a woman's point of view, one of the main measures of success or failure is: Have I gained or lost weight? No matter if a woman is stick-thin and told by her physicians that, for her own good, she'd better gain a few kilos, or if she's perfectly average weight-wise or bulging from her clothes, it's always the same: have I managed to gain/lose?...

2. Sifting through the business cards. Sorry to say that this year I gathered only a small number of cards, and gave away very few from the big, heavy bundle I brought with. Then again, this could be a direct result of the happy circumstance that I already knew many of the people there and they know me and we know how to get in touch with each other! The one person whom I really wanted to meet – a distant cousin I last saw years ago – didn't seek me out and introduce herself! I kept my eyes peeled, but didn't see her. Hey, cousin M – where art thou? Then there was a young woman whose name (on her name tag) seemed very familiar, but I couldn't place her. I thought of walking up to her, introducing myself (that is, pointing to my name tag), and waiting to see if any light of recognition dawns on her face. But I didn't, and I'm sorry, because once at my desk-top at home, I realized she's one of my mentees! Shame on me. I apologize.

3. What did I learn? In less-than-useful terms, I learnt:

Being a famous professor does not necessarily mean that you can hold a tired audience spellbound
Being "an actress" doesn't mean you can act; I suppose just as being "a translator" doesn't mean you can translate
Being timid-looking and soft-spoken doesn't mean you can't be engaging and pleasant and informative
Many translators seem scared stiff of the idea of having to take an exam (to become certified)
There are lots of companies out there who want to sell me expensive stuff, be it a subscription to a work-providing spot (no thanks) or a thingy to rest my forearms on as I type. (I'll ask the raffle-winner if she likes it before even considering such an expensive contraption.)
Jonathan Franzen has a way with words
Rami Saari's command of languages is amazing
Managing your online presence, web content, and online self-marketing is a full time job. I guess we're expected to do the actual translation/editing work as overtime…
Some people become better and better speakers with experience.

4. In truly useful terms,I learnt:

Mitzlol means alliteration
Tamsir means handout
"People-first language" is a pain… an example of a creditable idea gone overboard. See, for example, the helpful(?) chart provided by The National Inclusion Project. Yeah, some of it is sensible and civil. And some of it is, well, come on, people!
But at least my assisted-living client knew what he was talking about when he insisted I refer to the residents as "older adults" (as opposed to "elderly", "senior citizens", "golden agers" and so on.)
In your blog or website, if quoting a source, limit it to under 250 words, or else Google will hold it against you.
There are some charming people whom I only get to see once a year, at these conferences. Which as far as I'm concerned, is in itself a good enough reason to continue coming to these conferences.
Whoever you are – the person who donated his copy of The Light Fantastic to the used-book fair – Thank you, thank you, thank you! Our copy has been missing for years, and our Terry Pratchett collection was incomplete without it.
In terms of my own presentation – careful preparation pays off; an appreciative audience is a blessing.

Joking aside, it was – like all my blogging colleagues pointed out – a wonderful conference, and left me in utter awe and admiration of the organizers, especially the unpaid ones, the ITA volunteers who worked hard to make it happen. Thank you all.

You don't have to take my word for it…

2011-02-06T19:00:00.000+02:00

My two blogs have been sorely neglected recently, what with me being preoccupied with pre-conference work and conference-related work. I've been spending half my [pure-work] time trying to make some headway on a big project that (surprise, surprise) is turning out to be more difficult and time consuming than I thought; and half my time preparing my talk and presentation for the ITA conference.

For various reasons, the time-slot allotted me is only 30 minutes. In previous years I had 45 minutes to talk. It's tough to squeeze everything I have to say on my topic into 30 min or less (leaving time for questions). The speaker before me has a whole 60 minutes. But then, she'll be speaking on the attractive subject of Facebook, whereas I'll be speaking on the touchy issue of customer complaints.

Assuming that there won't be time left for Q&A – unless I really zoom through my examples – I've designed my penultimate slide to compensate for that lack, and am suggesting to my audience – those who have not yet fallen asleep or run off for coffee and cake before the closing session – to drop me a line, and I'll answer their questions here on my blog. This seems to me an excellent solution. Will give me time to think carefully rather than shoot from the hip. I, for one, can think of lots of pertinent questions.

Now, the easiest way to give listeners my email address and blog URL is to hand out my business card. It carries my slogan – Take Nina's word for it – which, when Googled, directs you to my blog. Simple, right? No need to memorize or write anything down.

This reminded me of a colleague's objections to my slogan. She said it sounded smug or haughty or something like that. Her comment took my by surprise. I never thought of it like that. I was actually thinking of the more literal meanings of the phrase, not of its idiomatic import. As in-house chief editor of Hever Translators'Pool, I definitely wanted Hever's translators to take "my word"; my monthly Editor's Letter, with proposed and recommended solutions, was my way of establishing a sort of House Style Guide. Later, as self-employed, I wanted prospective clients to take "my word" rather than someone else's. I never meant it to mean, "listen, folks, believe me, I know best." I like giving my opinion, sure; but, being a skeptic, I applaud skepticism. In fact, I was actually considering opening another blog, entitled Don't Take My Word for It… but decided against it.

In brief, I urge you all:

Do come to my talk; I really don't fancy talking to myself. Besides, it should be fun.
Send me questions.
Read my blog for answers.
Keep an open mind. Be critical. Be skeptical. Consider my suggestions. Then take them or leave them.

See you soon in Jerusalem!

Down and Out in Paris and London / George Orwell

2011-01-23T18:23:00.021+02:00

Well, what did I expect from a book with such a title? An upbeat tale?

Despite my reluctance to read depressing books, this was fascinating. The description of not having a penny (or a sou) to one's name, to the extent of not eating for three days, is difficult to grasp to anyone who's never been in such a situation. I guess young Eric Arthur Blair subsisted on water (even weak tea is not to be taken for granted) and cigarettes during those days. Cigarettes don't go bad like milk nor stale like bread, say, so you could keep a stock, bought in more "affluent" days (all is relative.)
Anyone who's fasted seriously on Yom Kippur knows how unpleasant it is not to eat a thing for 24 hours. So try to imagine three whole days, which often included walking for miles. On a totally empty stomach.

The description of the squalor in the cheap Paris "hotels", or boarding houses for the destitute, is unsettling: the bug-infested rooms, the dirty sheets, the need to pawn one's spare clothes to be able to afford tea-and-two-slices.

But far worse is the colorful description of what used to go on in the kitchens of Paris hotels and restaurants. Read on, and it might just ruin your appetite for days:

It was amusing to look round the filthy little scullery and think that only a double door was between us and the dining-room. There sat the customers in all their splendour--spotless table-cloths, bowls of flowers, mirrors and gilt cornices and painted cherubim; and here, just a few feet away, we in our disgusting filth. For it really was disgusting filth. There was no time to sweep the floor till evening, and we slithered about in a compound of soapy water, lettuce-leaves, torn paper and trampled food. A dozen waiters with their coats off, showing their sweaty armpits,
sat at the table mixing salads and sticking their thumbs into the cream pots. The room had a dirty, mixed smell of food and sweat. … There were only two sinks, and no washing basin, and it was nothing unusual for a waiter to wash his face in the water in which clean crockery was rinsing. But the customers saw nothing of this. .. (Chapter 22)

The writing is matter-of-fact, honest and appealing. (Though I did feel like editing it a bit here & there… but rather glad nobody did.) The humor is extremely understated and low key, but it is definitely there, under the surface.

When I was just about to finish the Paris part and move on to the London part, and having gathered that his lot would not be any better, I thought that in England Orwell may feel more "betrayed"; in Paris he was a foreigner; England should, theoretically, be his home, and as such more… caring?

I could barely believe my eyes when I read how the young Blair deteriorated from being a Paris plongeur to a London tramp. The life of a British tramp is explained, as was his Parisian life, very matter-of-factly, yet the descriptions are painfully vivid.

I learnt the terms "spike" and "casual ward" – the deplorable accommodations designed for vagrants:

At about a quarter to six the Irishman led me to the spike. It was a grim, smoky yellow cube of brick, standing in a corner of the workhouse grounds. With its rows of tiny, barred windows, and a high wall and iron gates separating it from the road, it looked much like a prison. (Chapter 27)

By seven we had wolfed our bread and tea and were in our cells. We slept one in a cell, and there were bedsteads and straw palliasses, so that one ought to have had a good night's sleep. But no spike is perfect, and the peculiar shortcoming at Lower Binfield was the cold. The hot pipes were not working, and the two blankets we had been given were thin cotton things and almost useless. (Chapter 35)

Orwell has a unique talent of describing something both subjectively and objectively, as it were. On the one hand he is part of the tramp scene, shares their squalid existence and some of the ugly aspects of their behavior, while at the same time reporting it in a dispassionate, precise way. I wouldn't say "detached", though. He is thoroughly involved and empathetic.

As sorry as the reader may feel for him, one can still take comfort from the knowledge that Blair/Orwell does extricate himself from this life. Even as he was experiencing, observing and taking notes, and before he knew that he would one day become a well-known (and hopefully financially comfortable, or at least secure) author, he did have a friend to lean on. A friend who twice lent him 2 pounds – quite a fortune, for a tramp – and quite likely saved him from starving or … or I don't know what.

Would anyone who has, say, a half-decent family to fall back on [not that there is any mention of Blair having such a family] let himself go through such degrading and excruciating living, just for the sake of "experience"? And if you do, isn't the whole experience contaminated by the fact that you're there by choice, not because Life has been cruel to you? And even if you don't have a backup system, surely all this suffering is more bearable when you know it's definitely temporary, and all you have to do is grit your teeth and continue breathing, and walking from Casual Ward to Casual Ward, secure in the knowledge that, come next spring, say, your time will be up and you'll rejoin "normal" society?

If this were a novel, I'd be devastated by the protagonist's suffering. Knowing that, while true, it was but temporary for the writer, makes it more bearable, though no less shocking, when one thinks of the writer's fellow tramps, who didn't have a way out.

And just in case you were wondering, what makes a tramp a tramp in the first place, Orwell's explanation is an eye-opener:

Why do tramps exist at all? It is a curious thing, but very few people know what makes a tramp take to the road.... It is said, for instance, that tramps tramp to avoid work, to beg more easily, to seek opportunities for crime, even -- least probable of reason s--because they like tramping. … And meanwhile the quite obvious cause of vagrancy is staring one in the face….. A tramp tramps, not because he likes it, but for the same reason as a car keeps to the left; because there happens to be a law compelling him to do so. [emphasis mine.] A destitute man, if he is not supported by the parish, can only get relief at the casual wards, and as each casual ward will only admit him for one night, he is automatically kept moving. He is a vagrant because, in the state of the law, it is that or starve.
(Chapter 36)

This has given me an appetite for more of Orwell's non-fiction, plus perhaps those of his novels that are heavily based on his own life and experience. If I do indeed read more (see huge selection on Amazon), I shall report.

Note: I read the Penguin Books edition; copied the quotations from this online version.

Meantime, I've switched to something lighter: Bill Bryson's Notes from a Small Island.
- to be continued -

Here comes the 2011 ITA Conference

2011-01-22T12:17:00.011+02:00

February is approaching fast, for better and for worse.
For better, because I'm looking forward to the conference.
For worse, because I should have, by now, submitted my presentation, but I have not.
Which means I should turn down work, for a few days at least, and get that lecture and presentation down on record!

Several of my colleagues have already posted links to the conference program, and said all sorts of nice things about it. There was one guy, however, who – a propos of conferences in general, apparently – wrote on FB that he just doesn't see the point in conferences, where people come mainly to mingle, drink lousy coffee and eat rogalach. Or something to that effect. I'm not his FB "friend" so I don't have access to the precise quote.

Dear T.P., I guess you've had unpleasant experiences of conferences. I can't argue with you, because I don’t recall attending any serious conference other than the ITA's. There was one totally commercial "conference" organized by www.status.co.il in June 2006, about inter-cultural business and communication, where I gave a lecture-cum-presentation entitled Good Translation as a Way of Dealing with Inter-Cultural Gaps. But it didn't feel like a "real" conference. And I know Hubby has been to several work-related conferences over the years, in Israel and abroad, but I couldn't get a proper description out of him of what those were like. Mostly they involved spending time in airports and hotels. So all I have to go on is the ITA conferences I took part in over the past few years. And let me tell you, they were great.

I started small, by attending for only a few hours, but I quickly got hooked, and graduated to "Full Program", minus the first-day workshops. So what's so great about them? Briefly:

Call it mingling, schmoozing, networking, or whatever: it's being with like-minded people who know what you're talking about when you complain about a difficult text or vent about an awkward customer.
You are not alone in the universe! There are intelligent beings out there! For a person who works cooped up at home at least 5 days a week, seeing mostly his/her computer screen and physical cluttered desktop, and talking to oneself or one's pet, be it cat or rock, this is a delightful change. You catch up, exchange tips, commiserate and whatnot, in real-time! Face-to-face! Not on chat or FB or email or even phone; real, live, human communication! You step on their toes, they actually let out an audible "Ouch!"
No cooking, no washing up, no dieting, no shopping. Just eat and drink. I have nothing against rogalach – when they're good, they're delicious. But at most conferences rogalach et al are just a footnote in the general fare. The food is plentiful, varied, and actually rather tasty. The choice of desserts is mind boggling. Though if you're strict – like my friend LBO who must watch his weight if he wants his ultralight to stay afloat with him plus a passenger aboard – you can make do with a healthful piece of fruit. See ultralight:

Other people's lectures and presentations: I love the wide choice. The weighing of pros and cons, which lecture might be more interesting, more fun, more useful. Sure, they don't all live up to expectations. But then some surpass expectations. So yes, I have learnt quite a bit and laughed quite a bit. (And yawned here & there – so what?)
Giving a lecture/presentation can be nerve-racking and stressful… at least until you're well into it and on a roll. But it's also extremely satisfying and gratifying. Seeing your audience nod in agreement and understanding… Hearing them chuckle (at the right places), and knowing that you're being helpful and useful.
I get to see and hear people whose work – whether in the language professions or other fields – I admire, and can ask them questions and/or go up to them and express my admiration. This year, for example, I'm looking forward to hearing Prof Gabriela Shalev, Israel's Ambassador to the UN until late 2010. Also, having been involved in amateur dramatics for years and interested in translation for the stage, I'm curious about Prof Shimon Levy and his team of actors' take on translation for stage.

Well, that's enough. I feel like I'm preaching to the choir. What I'd really like to do is convince "unaffiliated" colleagues to join the ITA and attend the conference. Yes, I mean you – HG, JT, HF, GB – among others. Try it. You'll like it; and if you don't overdo the food stuff, you won't have to reach for the Alka-Seltzer.

New Year's Resolutions – following in my colleagues' keyboard strokes

2011-01-10T22:09:00.000+02:00

Two of my colleagues, who write the most enjoyable blogs, have recently written a New Year's Resolutions post. I usually do my annual soul-searching and the jotting down of well-meant resolutions on or around Rosh HaShana, the Jewish New Year. Force of habit, from childhood. But having read my friends' posts, and not remembering where I wrote and what I did with my most recent Resolutions, I thought I'd chime in.

The first post is by Yael Sela Shapiro, see transela.com, if you read Hebrew. Her Point #1, though sensible, did not appeal to me: for heavens' sake, she talks about working more and blogging less! I'd rather do things the other way round. Point #2, viz., work more, waste less time on aimless web browsing, is a touchy one. I plead guilty, blush, and pretend I never read it.
Two points which I endorse wholeheartedly are:

Say no to yukky texts (See my previous posts, of December 2010 and July 2010.)
To help achieve that goal, peruse a text carefully before accepting the job. How often do we just glance at a text, see it's more-or-less doable, and say Fine, only to regret it bitterly as we discover the true horrors lurking in those innocent-looking paragraphs.

The second post, by Inga Michaeli, is more my cup of tea, since Point #2 advocates fun things like more blogging and less work. However, to make that possible, there's the important issue of pay. If we get paid more for our work, we can afford to work less and spend more time on the joys of life. This is Inga's highly commendable Point #4. Sure – we love our work, and sometimes it is pure joy, or at least very satisfying. Still, more time for family, friends, dinners out, trips abroad – well, they all contribute to our, ahem, professional development, our sanity, our wide horizons, our emotional and mental well-being. No one wants to deal with a disgruntled, stressed-out translator/editor, right??? So you see, it's in everyone's best interest that we balance work and play.

By now, I have found the notes I made last Yom Kippur. Funnily enough, the notebook was precisely where it ought to be. Let's see what observations and resolutions I made only 3 months ago, and what I've done about them, so far:

1. Procrastination is a killer. Fight it.
Progress report: I'm not alone in the battle against it, but that's not much help.

2. The trick to Happy Work is working on enjoyable material. To that end, get in touch with people who might supply same. I have a few names. Get in touch with them. Do not put it off.
Progress report: Er… maybe after the ITA conference?...

3. Sort the huge pile of notebooks, letters, diaries etc that my mom left me.
Progress report: Started to. Got discouraged. Will have to wait.

4. Start new blog, about all sorts of things that don't fit into the current two blogs. Speak to website/blog expert recommended by Yael.
Progress report: Have name for new blog: Nina Tracks Changes. Jotted down ideas.

5. Turn daughter's room into a study.
Progress report: Winter is not the right time – it's the coldest room in the house! But I can still plan… like if I move the bookcases over there… and maybe my desk would fit over here…

6. Go for a brisk walk every day. Okay, at least every other day.
Progress report: Excuses, excuses.

Happy 2011 all. May you be successful with your resolutions. And if you're only partially successful, don't beat yourself over the head – you'll just get a headache which, in turn, will cause you to procrastinate.

The Problem with Lie to Me

2011-01-09T19:19:00.002+02:00

The problem with the TV series Lie to Me is, that it somewhat ruins all other police and detective series – good, bad, new, old, British, American… They could all use Cal Lightman or his skills, and solve their cases in half the time. In all these other shows, you see the macho, stiff-upper-lipped detective or his ridiculously high-heeled female partner interrogating a suspect or a witness, and they're at a total loss as to whether their interlocutor is telling the truth. Now, where is Dr. Lightman when you need him?!

As an aside, it's mostly the American girl-detectives and crime-scene investigators who wear high heels and skin-tight pants, whose makeup is always perfect and who contaminate a crime scene with their long, flowing hair. British girl-detectives tend to look like real women. They are not necessarily pretty, they wear little or no makeup and sensible shoes, they don't look like they've just stepped out of the beauty parlor, and – believe it or not – they often wear the same outfit throughout the entire episode! With no cleavage showing!

If a tree falls in the forest…

2011-01-08T19:09:00.000+02:00

OK, so the jury is still out on that one.
But what about big mistakes in tiny print in boring ads that no one reads? Do they count? Does it matter? Does anywhere out there care, except for a few persnickety editors/proofreaders and compulsive ad readers?...

Take this Mega ad the in the J. Post…

I'm pretty sure nobody reads it. If anything, you just glance at the pics of the products and their prices, and say to yourself, "Hmm… interesting… I wonder how much I paid last week for a kilo of this type of laundry power… I think it was buy one get the second one at 37.4% off, or maybe buy two, get the third for 23 shekels plus points, or stars, or stamps…" And then you just shrug it off and throw out the paper.
So obviously no one but me noticed the "handwritten note" that says, and I quote:

"Every family and it's
shopping – and shopping
is done at Mega chains!"

I don't know, maybe it makes sense if you've seen the original Hebrew version. But I wouldn't count on it.

You've learnt to expect stupid mistakes in ads.
But what about a catalog of an art exhibition by a respectable cultural institution?
Or rather, what about a mistake in a work of art that includes words as a visual element?

The other week I translated some texts for the highly aesthetic catalog of the delightful exhibition, Mythological Gods Step Down from Mount Olympus. I wasn't asked to edit the catalog. And I certainly wasn't asked to edit the illustrations hung up in the exhibition. But why, oh why, didn't anyone tell this artist that the text embedded in her illustration is in incorrect English?

The text in the right-hand bubble, which you probably cannot read in my scanned version, reads:

"I had a dream about my
mother in law again. I think
I am loosing it."

And the same mistake is repeated in the left-hand bubble.

(I only noticed it when looking closely at the 50x70 cm illustration, at the exhibition, on opening night.)

Why, oh why, do teachers worldwide fail at instilling in their students the difference between its and it's, lie and lay, lose and loose, to mention a few common offenses? I'm sure they (the teachers) do their best, I'm not blaming them. I'm blaming the students. I don’t think they're dumb; I think they just don't care. Its, it's, lose, loose -- why make such a fuss over it, they seem to say; the language will eventually change to reflect our usage anyway, so why bother?...

I wonder how they translated…

2010-12-30T09:00:00.001+02:00

Generally speaking, I read books in the language in which they were written. Which means I read English books in English and Hebrew books in Hebrew. When it comes to books in other languages, such as La Vie Devant Soi, Frøken Smillas fornemmelse for sne or Nesnesitelná lehkost bytí I usually I have a choice of reading them in English or in Hebrew.

People ask me, which language do you prefer to read in?
Well, I read Hebrew faster than I do English. In Hebrew, I can take in a whole page at a time. This comes in handy, but it's no fun.

Thing is, I can rarely read without thinking of a possible translation.
Reading a Hebrew translation of an English book is exhausting, because I'm constantly back-translating in my mind, trying to figure out what the original was.

On the other hand, when reading a Hebrew book in the original, and knowing it's been translated into English, I can't help thinking, "Hmm… I wonder what the translator made of this… and if he/she got this word right… and how on earth did he find an equivalent for this idiom, which surely doesn't appear in Neri Sevenier's book?..."

I'd been toying with the idea of buying a copy of a translated novel or two, so I could indulge my curiosity. Preferably second-hand. But never got around to it.

So imagine my joy when my exercise-class pal S., recently retired after 18 years of work at Steimatzky's, offered me a load of books! I declined the Dan Browns (in English, but would have declined them in any language), but pounced on the English versions of Amos Oz's A Tale of Love and Darkness, translated by Nicholas de Lange; and of David Grossman's Someone to Run With, translated by Vered Almog and Maya Gurantz.

What a treasure! Two novels that I thoroughly enjoyed. Now all I have to do is find time to read each book in both languages simultaneously, and all(???) my questions and wonderings will be(???) answered….

Priceless...

2010-12-29T18:05:00.000+02:00

I guess if you're a lucky lottery winner, you don't care much what it said in the Lotto, Toto or Pais ad, so long as they shell out.

But I don't buy any lottery tickets, I just amuse myself reading the poor translations of their ads and making fun of their typos, if typos they are.

Below is the bottom part of a huge ad that ran in the J. Post for 2 days in a row, before the most recent draw.

Like I said – if I won 2nd prize, I wouldn't care much that they referred to it as Second Price… (Not to mention if I won first prize, or price, or whatever anyone wished to call it.)

Do you, Nina R. Davis, take this client…

2010-12-15T11:04:00.000+02:00

Taking on a new client is not a marriage. Neither is any arrangement with a client. You can change your mind. You may ask to alter the terms of the agreement. You can terminate the affair. Or – like with a marriage – you may be better off not getting into it in the first place.

In July 2010 I wrote a post about listening to your gut feeling and turning down a job. The other day I did it again.

A client gave my name to a prospective client, a respectable company. Let's call it Luftgescheft Limited. Another client chimed in and recommended me heartily. So far, so good. I'm deeply grateful to both.

Then Mr. Luft requested a getting-acquainted meeting. Generally, I hate such meetings. They're time consuming and often stressful. I'd much rather conduct my business from the comfort of my desk, via email and the occasional phone-call if absolutely necessary. Let my work and my polite emails speak for themselves. (I only rant and rave when I'm on very comfortable, familiar terms with a client…) But I went. I listened. Nodded. Spoke little. Tried to "get a handle" on the issues at hand. But mostly I was fascinated by Luft's physical and mental attitude. The guy reeked smugness, superiority and superciliousness. His attitude was so disconcerting that it actually got in the way of my absorbing what the company was all about; their "mission", credo, unique selling points, and so on.

So I made sure I had an escape hatch, and said I'm not quite sure I'm the right person for the project, and have to go home and think about it. Luft agreed, and only requested that I give him a "go/no-go" (his words) reply as soon as possible.

I went home and thought about it.
First, I realized that I have nothing to say about the company, and that wracking my brains to come up with good, convincing copy was the last thing on earth I wanted to do.
Secondly, I realized that I'd rather not deal with Mr. Luft at all.

To help me finalize my decision, I carefully read all the printouts I was given, and re-examined the company website. Everything I read confirmed my initial reaction. I could, and would be willing to, do a good job of editing their written material. But I did not want to get involved in writing new stuff. So I wrote a polite email that included an offer to give them names of other professionals, and sent it off.

That was a few days ago.

I would have expected a brief acknowledgement. Just "Thanks for your email", or "Thanks for letting me know", or even a stiff "We are in receipt of yours of the 12th inst." would have been fine. But I got nothing.

That in itself says something, does it not?

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

Nina's Tips for Lectures and Presentations

2010-12-04T20:02:00.001+02:00

The ITA Annual Conference is approaching. Many have sent the Committee proposals for lectures and presentations, and it seems like the program is going to be pretty full. Goody-goody – I look forward to breaking my head over which lecture to go to!

A few of years ago, I came back from the conference with the distinct feeling that people needed help in preparing their lectures. While this impression was still fresh in my mind, I dashed off a 10-page paper in longhand. And so it sat there for three or four years. I suppose now is as good a time as any (in fact, better than, say, after the upcoming conference) to share my thoughts with you, even though several conferences have taken place since, and I do believe participants have meanwhile honed their skills.

Warning: May contain a few points already mentioned on my blog or in some previous ramblings.

Tips for Lectures & Presentations

Most of us are neither born orators nor natural entertainers/performers. But even those who look and sound adept and facile often seem that way thanks to many hours of rehearsing and practicing their craft. So don't feel bad if you dread getting up there on the podium and talking to a roomful of staring, expectant faces, making them nod, tut-tut or chuckle.

I wouldn't recommend, for example, trying to emulate Irit Linur (at the 2006 conference) with her easy, nonchalant attitude, speaking in a natural, relaxed manner without any notes or PowerPoint.

So what can you do to make your next lecture/presentation a success?

Choosing a subject

This may sound obvious, but it bears repeating: Choose a subject close to your heart, something you feel passionately about, really care about, and that you know well. This way, even if you lose your train of thought, you'll be able to ad-lib; and when Q&A time comes, you will feel you're on solid ground.
If you've chosen a subject on which you've spoken once (or twice, or thrice) before, try to give it a new spin, look at it from a different angle. Bring it up-to-date with new examples that weren't in existence last time you spoke on the same subject; or adapt it to your new target audience. (Not exactly an option if the same people come to hear you speak. You don't want to bore them to tears.)
Is your proposed subject really well-suited to an oral presentation? Be excruciatingly truthful. Some papers are better left as written papers and may be of great merit as research in the relevant field, but are boring as all hell to listen to, and may leave the listener with a feeling of "so what?" Don't inflict such a lecture on an unsuspecting audience. They won't forgive you and will not want to listen to what you have to say at the next conference.

Correct structure of the talk/presentation

Do not spend too much of your limited time on an introduction or "historical approach", only to realize belatedly that you have only five minutes left for the rest of your talk. As you write your lecture, consciously limit yourself. For example: 300 words introduction, 300 words summing up, 1400 words for the main body of the lecture.
Write it all out, then time yourself. Read it aloud, not too fast, to anyone willing to listen. The cat, dog of goldfish will do in a pinch, though human beings are usually – not always – more helpful.
If you've been allocated 50 minutes, allow a few min for shuffling through your papers, making sure you have the right pair of glasses and that the bottle of mineral water is within easy reach yet securely placed, and will not get knocked over when you reach for the mouse or to adjust the mike. Allow at least 5, preferably 10 min for Q&A. That leaves you around 35 min to talk.
So you've timed yourself. The dog seemed impressed whereas the cat either curled up and went to sleep, or walked away disdainfully. Don't get discouraged. Concentrate on the timing: if you're short, go back and elaborate on one or two points; add an example, an appropriate anecdote, or a joke if you think you can pull it off. If you've overpitched – go back and cut back.

If you're giving a PowerPoint presentation

If you're creating a PPT, take into account that presenting it may take a bit longer than an unillustrated talk, what with pointing to various bits on the screen and fumbling with an unfamiliar keyboard. Ergo, the actual talk should take at the very most 30 min.

PPT has a very handy built-in timer; use it when practicing; get used to the sound of your own voice.

Change the number of slides and amount of text on each to fit into the allocated time. As with the text of a lecture, so with the presentation: If your slide show comprises 30 slides, use 2-3 for the intro, no more than the same for summing up, and keep the lion's share for the heart of the matter. It's okay if the cat yawns; if your audience yawns, it had better be because your lecture is right after lunch, or because they stayed up dancing half the night.

If you're comfortable with PPT and can easily use all its bells and whistles – great, bully for you, but don't overdo it. You don't want to overshadow or drown your message.

If you feel comfortable with the basics only – that's fine, too. Though a little bit of color goes a long way. Try at least to use a different color font to emphasize key words, for instance. Or use a different background color to differentiate between the sections of your talk. E.g.,

Color 1 – the intro

Colors 2, 3, 4 – the main sections of the talk

Color 1 again, or 5 – conclusions and summing up.

Don't put too much text on one slide, and keep the font large enough so it can be seen from the back of the hall. Otherwise people will be too busy trying to catch up on the reading and will miss what you're saying.

Use short but complete sentences in the PPT, and elaborate on them orally, preferably without referring to notes. If you know your material inside out, this shouldn't be a problem. Or, you can memorize the text that elaborates on each short, spiffy sentence.

Find out beforehand whether the PC at the conference will have a regular mouse, or if you'll be expected to use the touchpad. Most of the time, you'll probably be using the arrow keys. But if you'll want to use the pointer, say, and don't get along well with a touch pad, consider bringing your own mouse and asking the technician to attach it. A laser pointer is a very handy thing to have when referring to items up on the screen.

Whether it's a talk or a talk-plus-presentation

Make the most of the short time at your disposal by being clear and specific. Don't ramble on, no promotional talk, sales pitch, or highfalutin bla-bla yadda-yadda. Stick to the point, make sure everything you say contributes to your message.

If you're handing out handouts

Make sure the text is easy on the eyes. Use a large (at least 12 pt), user-friendly font, with line spacing of 1.5 or 2, wide margins to scribble in, double spaces between paragraphs; in short, what tech writers call "plenty of white space". Use bullets or numbers if appropriate.

Other stuff

1. Dress neatly and comfortably. You don’t want a belt or tie that restrict your breathing nor shoes that pinch, nor a strap that keeps slipping off your shoulder.
No, it's not okay to come dressed for a picnic in old jeans and shloompy T-shirt. Unless you're a famous performer and it's part of your image…
2. Get a haircut, or use hairspray, hair gel, Dapper Dan's hair pomade, bobby pins, a hat, hairband or any other contraption – just don't mess with your hair and don't keep pushing it out of your eyes during the presentation.
3. Focus on a few friendly faces in the audience. Try to find one in each corner of the hall, plus a couple in the center and in the front row, and talk to them. Your best friend / colleague / mother / son is in the audience? Great! Speak to them, too.
4. Ever taken part in a school play? An amateur production? Pretend this isn't you on the podium; not the same "you" who came here on a bus or sat at the lunch table next to the guy in the 3rd row. You're an actor, and a damn good one, and you're putting on a show.
5. Don't begin your talk by apologizing. We don't need to know what you can't or won't do or forgot to do. We know you're only human. But we came to hear what you do have to say. So tell us.

I promise we'll applaud at the end.

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In a timely, though not surprising, coincidence, my colleague Inga Michaeli, recent former Chair of the ITA, also wrote a post on the same subject, in Hebrew: טיפים להרצאה מוצלחת (Tips for a successful lecture). Read it on Inga's blog.

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With thanks to all the good writers, speakers and presenters I've learnt from, and to my friend Marion Claire, the Confident Speaker's Coach.

The case of the 13 books

2010-11-21T16:00:00.002+02:00

Maybe I didn't feel it was urgent to read the Sexy New Finds for Your Lips (November Cosmo, page 80), or the Beauty Cheat Sheet (ibid, p. 82) back when we were in the UK in October because I had a premonition that the cows and sheep of the West Pennine Moors would not be impressed.

Or maybe I was too enthralled by the boxes of books that had been delivered to our hosts, Jenny and Bob, by Amazon UK via the trusty Royal Mail and their intrepid drivers, aided by Jenny standing outside Rose Cottage and waving to them with a big flag.

Well, no sooner had we had a nice cuppa tea, than we pounced on those cardboard boxes and padded envelopes, tearing them open and pulling out the, yes, thirteen books we'd ordered. What's wrong with thirteen? It's a lucky number, isn't it? And we did bring an extra trolley to help haul them home.

In the interest of proper disclosure, only 5 of the 13 books were for me, of which one is purely a reference book I need for my work – the much-valued Chicago Manual of Style, 16th edition, (1025 p., 1.5 kg = 3.3 lb) compared to the 13th edition I had (737 p., 1.1 kg = 2.5 lb).

My other acquisitions, and the reasoning, if any, behind them, were:

Down and Out in Paris and London / George Orwell
Why? No idea. It seemed like a good idea at the time. At the moment it still seems like a good idea. As you will see from the link provided, you can read it online and decide for yourselves.

The Definitive Book of Body Language / Allan and Barbara Pease
Why? Because Tim Roth is cute and I'm hooked on Lie to Me. No, seriously: because, in the early '70s, I found the more pioneering work on body language, by Julius Fast, fascinating. And I was told that this newer book is more comprehensive and up-to-date. So far it's a bit of a drag. But it's not a book you have to read from cover to cover. You can dip into it, choosing the chapters that appeal to you.

Notes from a Small Island / Bill Bryson
Why? Well, I'd never even heard of Bill Bryson, until my friend Trish, complimenting me on my travel blog [Nina Makes Tracks], said something like, "Who knows, maybe you'll be the next Bill Bryson." So obviously I proceeded to Google, and became intrigued. Bryson has written a lot, but this one appealed to me. The one paragraph I read so far was so just like my own impressions! Here's an excerpt from the paragraph in question, from Chapter 1, p. 29:

"If you mention in the pub that you intend to drive from, say Surrey to Cornwall….your companions will….look knowingly at each other….and then they'll launch into a lively and protracted discussion of whether it's better to take the A30 to Stockbridge and then the A303 to Ilchester or the A361 to Glastonbury via Shepton Mallet. Within minutes the conversation will plunge into a level of detail that leaves you, as a foreigner, swiveling your head in quiet wonderment."

Can't tell you how many times I have experienced this exact type of conversation, upon embarking on a car ride in England, be it from one end of London to another of from London to, say, Barnsley, Yorks.

A Short History of Nearly Everything / Bill Bryson
Why? Because I like rough guides to science, which is what this 687 page baby is about. Bryson's easy style is, of course, a marked bonus.

Here endeth my part of the purchases.
We also ordered two fat omnibuses of humorous fantasy writer Tom Holt for our son Daniel; five fat fantasy novels for Hubby, a.k.a. Michael: a Robert Jordan, a David Gemmel, and three Raymond E. Feists. And last but très important, A pocket Calorie Counter, by Carolyn Humphries, to replace one that was falling apart from over-use. (Nah, we don't count calories. We keep track of carbs, for purely health reasons.)

* * *

… so, to make a long story short, what did I read in the UK?
- a bit of the body language book. Interesting, even useful, in small bites; gets tedious.
And what am I reading now?
- Tom Holt's Odds and Gods, one of his earlier stories. It is funny. If you like, l'll substantiate with a few choice quotations, even though they fail miserably – or hilariously – to provide the full picture.

Cosmo Ain't What It Used To Be

2010-11-19T17:17:00.000+02:00

But then, nothing is, right?

How many of you read Cosmopolitan? If you do, do you read the American edition, The British, or perchance the Israeli one? There are plenty other editions, of course, in other languages and countries, but I assume they have much in common: What to wear [the skinny jeans or the ones you can actually breathe and sit in? The dark grey or the dark-dark grey burqa?]; which hair-mousse/lipstick/eyeshadow is fashionable [not the ones you already have and paid a pretty penny for, that's for sure;] how to ask your boss for a raise [refer to the Body Language book first;] and – most important of all, the perennial best-seller – sex, sex, sex.

See, I feel that I owe you a follow-up to my post of October 14th, where I went on and on about what-book-to-take-on-vacation. The upshot was, I didn't take any book. I bought a Cosmo at the airport. I do that occasionally, mostly on trips, to while away the time in airport lounges and the like. I wouldn't read it while sitting in a waiting room here in Israel: someone might think I'm a shallow person who doesn't appreciate Literature, god forbid! But everything goes in the anonymity of a large international airport. ["Hey, see that silvery-haired woman in blue over there? Isn't she the one who hands out the tickets to the Ptashka jazz concerts?.. Quick, I'll hide the Cosmo!"]

Don't remember when I first discovered Cosmo. Possibly on my first trip to the States in 1972. Sure, it had articles on sex in those bygone days, too. I Googled and found a pic of the October 1972 cover. Let's see now, how many articles about sex does that issue contain, and how are they worded?

The Bugaboo of Male Impotence [Great, I just learnt a new word. How come baby stroller manufacturers decided on a word meaning "irrational fear" for their product name?... Are new moms terrified of strollers?...]
The Undiscovered Joys of Having a Chinese Lover [is that even politically correct?]
Analyst's Couch: The Unfaithful Husband [that qualifies as being about sex, right?]
How to Get Your Husband to Love You Like a Mistress (and Keep you Sexy and Satisfied) [Sounds a rather indirect approach…]

Other topics mentioned on the cover are low blood sugar, yoga, weight reduction, an excerpt from a novel, a short story, and more. Out of the 11 front-cover topics, four deal with sex, in one way or another, in fairly tame, polite language.

Now let's consider the November 2010 issue (American edition):
Look at the slightly shy cleavage of Tuesday Weld (on the 1972 cover), half covered by the huge pendant, as opposed to the in-your-face cleavage of Katy Perry with the tiny, strategically placed pendant. Notice the coy placement of Weld's left hand, compared to Perry's forceful gesture. Then Look at the modest font used for the list of topics on the 1972 cover, as opposed to the screamingly huge titles on the 2010 cover. Then consider the wording of some of the topics:

First, Take Off His Pants. Next, Treat Him to the Sexy Strokes He's Been Craving All Along… but Won't Ask For [well, at least they used capitalization rules correctly…]
Wicked Things Other Women Do in Bed (Our Naughtiest Sex Poll)
What Your Turn-Ons Reveal
Uh, well… the other topics are more loosely related to sex…

But the articles inside more than make up for it, with absolute must-know, hot information, such as Should You Have a Sex Code, Keep Your Long-Distance Love Hot, Feel Closer After a Fight, Your Top Sex Fantasies Analyzed, Sex Q+A, etc.

And of course, an all-time favorite that has absolutely nothing to do with sex, we women do it for sheer fun and enjoyment – Get Killer Abs in 6 Minutes a Day.

Not that I'm complaining. I'm no prude. And though the magazine has been on our coffee table for three weeks now, I've read only a fraction of its glossy, enticing 240 pages. I'm a working woman, you know; can't sit around reading Cosmo all day, even if it means I am still ignorant of the Sexy New Finds for My Lips. (Page 80, if you're interested.)

As for what I read during my 2 weeks in the UK – the blog-post is in the making. Hint: We'd ordered 13 books from Amazon UK, and they were waiting for us in Heath Charnock when we got there. [Never heard of H. Charnock? See How to get lost on the West Pennine Moors.]

Pitaro strikes [out] again

2010-10-15T11:00:00.002+02:00

One of my favorite pastimes is tearing apart bad copywriting and rotten translations of decent or even half-decent copywriting.

A case in point is Pitaro office furniture. They pour god knows how much money into their "creative" and into placing their full-page ads in weekend supplements and so on, but obviously pay zilch, or near zilch, to their English copywriters and/or translators, if any. I have no other explanation as to why they consistently come up with bad English in their catch phrases, tag lines, slogans. It stands out all the more both because there is very little text on the big page (which, in itself, is a good thing), and because they are so consistent in their transgression.

The first time I came upon their stupid "loose your body" caption, I wrote to them. The webmaster answered politely and forwarded my letter to the Powers that Be, who more or less told me I didn’t know what I was talking about, and ignored my comments. I didn't save their subsequent embarrassing blunders, but do have their latest "gem":

Everyday, is like a day off.

Guys, you meant "every day" not "everyday". And the comma is totally uncalled for. Such a short, simple statement, and you messed it up. How do you manage it?...

Gentle Readers, if you're in the mood, you can have more fun with the text on their home page.

It's that time of year again

2010-10-14T17:19:00.000+02:00

I bet you all feel really sorry for me –– it's that time of year again when thou mayest behold me as I agonize over which book to take on my trip abroad…

See, I'd actually made up my mind: I'd planned to take Stephen Fry's Moab Is My Washpot ; the very one which Clara (=Mom) enjoyed so much, that she begged Mr. Fry to write a sequel. (He sweetly declined. See bottom of page). But I can't find the ruddy thing!!! Grrr!!! (Vered , my abject apologies for all those exclamation marks.) Obviously, the minute I buy a new/second-hand copy, the old one will resurface. Besides, I don't have time to get a new one – we're flying Friday morning, and I doubt very much that Natbag bookstores would have it.

So here I go dithering again.

I've just finished reading Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go . Let me tell you – this blood-curdling novel will never let me go. Clara warned me. I'm not saying I'm sorry I read it – it's very good. But so depressing! I hate depressing books. They depress me. I don't enjoy being depressed. I can't go into details and tell you precisely what it's about, because that would constitute a Major Spoiler. Not that there's a twist in the plot a la The Crying Game or Planet of the Apes… In fact, going back to the first page of the book, it seems to be all spelled out right there on Page One (actually p. 3). But when first reading it, it doesn't really sink in. You don't quite get it. The first mention of what's really going on is only on page 80 (out of 282); then pivotal events and crucial bits of information appear gradually closer together – on pages 136, 164, 207, 228. [All page numbers refer to the Faber & Faber paperback edition, 2006.] The plot takes place in "England, late 1990s", and is a dystopia, in the same sense that George Orwell's 1984 , Neville Shute's On the Beach, Anthony Burgess' A Clockwork Orange and Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 are, to name a few famous ones. Yet its tone and point of view are different, low key, and … but that would be telling.

In brief, after that sad tale, I didn't want another heart-breaker. But I happened to pick up Philip Roth's The Plot Against America. Here's yet another dystopia if ever there was one, and on a more epic scale at that. Since I felt I didn't know enough American history to do the novel justice, I started from the Postscript, that runs in tiny print from page 363 to 391. So far I've read a brief bio of FDR and of Charles A. Lindbergh. But, as interesting as it all is, it's not the type of novel I like to take on vacation with me. So I'm stuck.

Now, if I had a Kindle, say…

Israeli Hebrew - It's Not What You Think

2010-10-13T18:31:00.000+02:00

Dr. Nurit Dekel's talk at the ITA Lecture Evening (Tel Aviv, October 5, 2010) "Israeli Hebrew - It's Not What You Think" caused an uproar and a furor. Arie Gus' talk was fascinating and enjoyable. Good mix, wouldn't you say? Happily, Nurit spoke before Arie, so the evening ended on a pleasant note.

Without getting into the discussion of modern Hebrew compared to old Hebrew, and to what extent the former is a continuation of the latter or a different language in its own right, I'd like to add my 7 agorot's worth (at today's exchange rate).

I think the purely linguistic observations and analysis totally miss a salient point, mentioned by Micaela Ziv and a few other sensible, down-to-earth people.* Every language has different registers; it has colloquial, slangy, spoken language and it has literary, educated, higher language. In society, you're allowed to use the former so long as you can also express yourself in the latter when and where appropriate. And this is where both Nurit and her colleague Prof. Ghil'ad Zuckerman fall flat on their faces.

Zuckerman says he has no problem with sub-standard Hebrew expressions like "shalosh shekel" (= three shekels, but using the grammatically incorrect form of the numeral); but I am sure he would not be caught dead saying it, because – if he were to do so in an environment where he is not known – it would immediately brand him as an ignoramus, or at least lower-class and uneducated. Certainly not the refined international professor that he is. Same goes for Dekel. She says that she does not correct her daughters when they use grammatically incorrect but linguistically logical forms of verbs and nouns. But she is doing them a disservice. I wonder how she would feel if her daughter went for a job interview, say, and got rejected because her spoken language made her sounded like a common "fakatza" or "frecha" (empty-headed bimbo). Though of course, in reality, many HR interviewers speak Hebrew that is not much better than their interviewees. Perhaps that's precisely what Kedem is counting on – pretty soon, lowest-common-denominator language, whether it's called Hebrew or Israeli, will prevail, becoming the accepted norm. No one will object to it. But that's not the worst of it.

As Micaela wisely and sadly pointed out:

"I am all for languages evolving and see Nurit's lecture as a sign that the revival of Hebrew has been a success. On the other hand, some of Nurit's fine examples indicate what I already know as a former educator: the level of spoken Hebrew is very low.
A language can / should / does evolve; the question is how it does so - i.e., are the younger generation articulate in Hebrew? The answer, sadly - is for the most part - no!
I am not too perturbed about whether Hebrew is adopting more "Europeanized" syntax or not, but I am very concerned that so many youngsters have a very limited vocabulary ("kazeh, ke'ilu") which means they can neither think, speak nor write clearly and coherently - and that is very dangerous for our future.

If anything, studies like Nurit's should be conducted on a written corpus and this will reveal the real issue. The problem is not that informal speech differs from written text. That is true in almost every country. The problem is that today, many young Israelis can only write the way they speak because the education system does not require them to make any serious effort to express themselves well."

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

* A couple of other sensible, level-headed reactions:

"My dispute with Nurit Dekel is not the name nor the fact that language/s evolve but that she advocated adopting the lowest common denominator as the rule-setter."
Nathan Ginsbury

"Does that mean "the miracle of the revival of the Hebrew language never happened?" No. It just means the brilliant pioneers who toiled with great love and skill to bring Hebrew into the modern age as the spoken language of the renascent Jewish state devised a version of Hebrew that has a lot in common with the European and other languages they spoke. To me this makes it no less a miracle that we speak Hebrew - a version that has enough in common with ancient Hebrew so that we can understand it."
Shoshana London Sappir

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Unwritten book review

2010-09-30T17:52:00.000+02:00

There's no law that says I must write a book review of every book I read, right?
For the past 15 years I've been keeping track of what I read, in a Word document that is now 52 pages long. Sometimes I jot down some impressions, other times I just note the approximate date, the title and the author. Um, no, I don't write down the name of the translator because I've been reading mostly in the original language, basically English and Hebrew. Which reminds me I really must go back to that Book Reviews document and give credit where credit is due, namely to the inimitable Nili Mirsky as the translator of the Gogol stories, Constance Garnett and Avrahm Yarmolinsky as translators of the Chekhov stories, and the one-and-only Gaio Sciloni as the translator of Italo Calvino, in case I ever get back to his If on a Winter's Night a Traveller , (Se una notte d'inverno un viaggiatore), which is still on my bookshelf since winter 1997, when my son's Lit teacher gave the class an excerpt to read (in the Hebrew translation)

But I digress.

My current complaint is that I have not been able to bring myself to write a brief review of the 540 page Terry Pratchett novel Unseen Academicals. It's lurking in the back of my mind, interfering with my enjoyment (if that's the right word) of Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let me Go.

Now, as I said, there's no law that says I must write about the books I read. Consulting my list I can see that, of the 48 Terry Pratchetts I read so far, I have only bothered to "review" around 28, so why let Unseen Academicals trouble me? I enjoyed its treatment of some subjects (supermodels, soccer fans, the Patrician), plodded through some ploddier bits, chuckled occasionally, and totally missed various allusions to British football culture. Doesn't mean I have to put it all down on paper/hard disk/the web.

Many of my earlier "reviews" of Terry Pratchett works were extremely short, others a bit more detailed. For example (and I quote, not "polishing" anything I wrote years ago):

Moving Pictures – Hollywood or Bust. Somewhat too obvious take-off on Hollywood.
Reaper Man – Terrific. DEATH as Beau Nidle, member of the Foreign Legion…
Small Gods – Scathing commentary on organized religion. Any religion.
Soul Music – Long live Rock 'n Roll…
Interesting Times – Whence originates the curse, "May you live in interesting times…" As Rincewind says, who wants interesting? Give me boring, boring, safe and boring….
Maskerade – A new twist on the Phantom of the Opera?
Carpe Jugulum – A bit morbid, ghoulish… I think I took it too seriously… Found the threat of the New Vampyres too convincing… But Granny Weatherwax wins the day – yet again! Long live the witches, and long live Terry Pratchett for giving us heroes and saviors who are female and not necessarily young, sexy, and/or gorgeous!

The Science of Discworld (with Ian Stewart & Jack Cohen)
- In fact, a book on science. Peppered with chapters about the wizards as a palliative and comic relief. Very informative, explains complex concepts clearly, and has many an amusing and philosophical insight.

The Truth - Pratchett takes on the Press; what it's like to be a newspaper editor and a journalist by nature. Scenes with the two thugs – include direct quotes from Pulp Fiction.

The Science of Discworld II (with Ian Stewart & Jack Cohen)
- Continues along the same lines as The Science of Discworld I, but so far seems more difficult scientifically. At the moment it deals with evolution. In any case, the writers’ approach and point view is refreshing, and they do their best not to offend religious believers while in no way compromising their own principles and beliefs, which is no mean feat. Slow going for someone who does most of her reading just before falling asleep.
At some point the science became more understandable, and the book more engrossing.

Only You Can Save Mankind
The first in the Johnny Maxwell series for kids/youth. Charming and – being Pratchett – includes pretty harsh yet funny social commentary, and anti-war sentiments, which I gather are further developed in depth for adults in his more recent books, Nightwatch, and later Thud.
Sample quotation:
"What is sexist?" [says the alien captain].
"What"? says Johnny.
"It was a word you used."
"Oh, that. It just means you should treat people as people, and, you know...
not just assume girls can't do stuff. We got a talk about it at school.
There's lots of stuff most girls can't do, but you've got to pretend they
can, so that more of them will. That's all of it, really."
"Presumably there's, uh, stuff boys can't do?" [asks the alien captain].
"Oh, yeah. But that's just girls' stuff," said Johnny. "Anyway, some girls
go and become engineers and things, so they can do proper stuff if they
want".

The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents - Supposedly, a children’s book, or at least a book for young people. To me, it was a thriller, albeit one with a social/moral message, or issues, as a basis.
It was a gripping page-turner, and a mystery, and scary. Reminded me somewhat of Watership Down.
Yes, it has humor, supplied mostly by Malicia Grim whose entire outlook on life is based on stories. And by the main(?) character, the would-be cynical Maurice; and, come to think of it, some scenes with the rats, and some scenes with the schlimazel rat-catchers, and so on. But on the whole, it is more action-suspense than comedy.
The fact that it takes place on Discworld and makes some references to “familiar” locations and characters such as Unseen University, the wizards, the Watch – makes it feel more “like home”; it’s good to know I’m on familiar territory, I more-or-less know the rules along which Discworld operates. And, since it’s Terry Pratchett, the plot and the characters and the conflicts have significance and values.

Going Postal - Ha! Ha ha ha!!! Reading and chuckling, really chuckling aloud – that’s something that few writers can cause me to do. Moist von Lipwig. Really! How can he give a hero such a drippy name. Anyway, the plot is thickening, the bad guy will get his comeuppance, and Moist will get his ashtray girl. I assume.
Yes, Moist gets his girl. The plot seems a bit more conventional or straightforward, less convoluted, than some of his other novels. But definitely not too simple. The Patrician is finely etched and comes shining through as an admirable, dispassionate, cunning and capable administrator. The social criticism is as scathing as ever. Adora Bell Dearheart, known as Killer to her friends, is a typically atypical female protagonist. In that sense, Terry Pratchett does a lot more for womankind than the cerebral, academically highfalutin Carolyn G. Heilbrun.
A couple of choice quotations:
“What a place! What a situation! What kind of man would put a known criminal in charge of a major branch of government? Apart from, say, the average voter.”
“She grabbed him by the ears and gave him a big kiss on the mouth. It was like being kissed by an ashtray, but in a good way.”
Pity I didn’t write “ha!” in pencil in the margins in other places, as I used to in my university days.

Johnny and the Bomb - Whimsical and engrossing. The comments on the weirdness of time and time travel fit in very well with what I recently read about time in Brian Greene’s book.
As usual, has a strong feminine figure, though less likeable than some, because she’s such a smart-ass, smarty-pants and looks down on everyone else. She does come down a notch at the end.
----------------
I'll stop here, since I think I've made my point. If you want to read more of my book reviews, just say the word, I'll be delighted.

Anyway: I have finally made my peace with the fact that I am not writing a review of Unseen Academicals. If you want to know what it's all about, there's always Amazon.

Phew. That's a relief.
Back to Never Let Me Go. Yes, I know they've just made a movie of it. Not sure I'll want to see it. And if I get too depressed reading it, there's always a good Terry Pratchett to fall back on.

A committee's work is never done

2010-09-20T12:35:00.000+02:00

An innocuous-looking item in the Jerusalem Post caught my eye the other day and gave me the shivers: "Public diplomacy Web site finally appears in English", said the heading.

No sooner had I come to grips with that bit of news, than another bit of similar information landed on my desk: the leaflet Masbirim Israel, called in its English incarnation Presenting Israel, is nearly ready for print.

Theoretically this is Good News. So why the shivers?

Because I know that both the website and the brochure are the result of the work of a committee of experts… Much has been said about the painful work of a committee. For example:

To get something done, a committee should consist of no more than three men, two of whom are absent.
- Robert Copeland

(There are some nastier barbs aimed at committees, but if you're in the mood you can go browse any number of quotation sites.)

The subject of hasbara, or public diplomacy, is very close not only to my heart but also to my keyboard and my hard disk. I have been involved, to one extent or another, with both projects, and beg that you do not put them under a microscope and do not put me through the wringer. Or rather, if you're in the mood to criticize, go ahead, but send your feedback directly to the Ministry. Minister Edelstein's efforts are commendable, and I support him whole-heartedly. But the committee, the committee…

How can you expect to get any sensible decisions made, when arguments become heated, experts clash, tempers flare? Inevitably, compromises and concessions are made, and high horses have to be gotten off of.

In conclusion: any faults you may find in either website or brochure are not the fault of any one person… they're the outcome of joint efforts by the committee. Have fun!

Shana Tova -- One-Size-Fits-All

2010-09-13T15:06:00.000+02:00

No point in waxing nostalgic over old New Year's greeting cards… Things change. Fact of life. Yes, when I was a school girl, sending Shana Tova cards was quite a project (only it wasn't referred to as a project, nor an enterprise or an assignment). We walked into the center of town, to our favorite bookshop or kiosk, that now had a table laid out with an enormous selection of cute, small cards with matching envelopes: with and without cherubs and doves, with and without silver or gold sparkles. You had to choose carefully, which you'd send to whom, how much you'd spend, how many plain ones you needed and how many fancy ones. Anyone from my generation, growing up in Israel when I did, remembers this, and I'm sure it's been documented in various novels, short stories, newspaper articles.

So, if there's no point in pining for Old Times, what am I complaining about?
I'm complaining about the other extreme: Sending one Shana Tova greeting to your entire list of Contacts, Friends, or Customers, or your entire Address Book. By email or by texting (SMS, to Israelis.)

I know it's efficient. I know you simply don't have the time to send an individual email greeting to each. I know that most of the people who include me in their Shana Tova mailing list do indeed mean it, and do indeed think of me not only on Rosh Hashana. Still, it simply doesn't have the same impact. No matter how clever and original your copywriting, it's still impersonal, and I have not gotten used to it.

Do I have a solution? Not exactly... not as such. I've become so upset by this phenomenon in the past couple of years that I've stopped sending greetings altogehter. I phone some people; I send a few personal emails; I enclose a real, tangible card when sending, say, an invoice/receipt or any other bit of correspondence that requires the use of snail-mail; and of course I reply to the greetings I receive by email. Because, as I said, the senders are my friends who truly wish me well and whom I really want to wish a Happy [Jewish] New Year. But I just can't bring myself to create and send a mass message.

Hope I haven't offended my friends. I'll probably get my comeuppance next year, when my friends will say, "Well, ma'am, if that's the way you feel about it, no problem, I'll just delete your name from the list." And I'll be the only person in Israel not getting any New Year greetings, and shall feel very forlorn…

I wonder whether there's an in-between method. How would that work?

- First of all, either phone or send a paper greeting card to elderly people who don't have a computer and/or computer skills.

- Next, prepare one e-greeting for family. If you don't have too huge a family, you can even give their names in the body of the email, and/or make the text a bit more specific, e.g., Sweetie – may your enterprise flourish, Honeybunch – knock their socks off, Baby – enjoy your new job/apartment, Auntie – hope you can go back to running this year; and so forth.

- Stage three – prepare one text for friends in Israel, wherein you can allude to local issues; and a slightly different text for friends abroad, wherein you can express your hope of their coming to visit you in Israel next year (or not).

- Stage four – a text for customers, both current and prospective. Should be easy to wish them success in their business ventures, with the implied hope that they count you in and send some work your way. And a separate text for colleagues, who have helped you in the past and whom you wish to thank and wish well.

- Stage five – well, anyone else who has not been included in the previous categories, but whom you do not wish to leave out.

Does this sound like a lot of work?... Almost as time-consuming as going into town and hand-picking paper cards, addressing them and sticking on stamps?... Aw, shucks! I guess it's time I got used to the mass e-greetings.

Thank you, my friends, for thinking of me. Shana Tova to all.

Back to autobiographies

2010-09-08T14:49:00.000+03:00

Reading biographies and autobiographies can be a terrible bore. For the most part, unless the protagonist is a figure of note, the tale is relevant and interesting only to close family members. Even autobiographies of famous people can be a bore. I am told that Churchill's contains some very tedious passages…

Years ago, I asked a friend to get me Virginia Woolf's latest biography, a heavy tome, considered by critics to be "definitive". Guess what – it was tedious beyond words, containing entire paragraphs along the lines of "… and the teapot on the mantelpiece described in Woolf's story XYZ turns out to be an accurate description of the teapot that was found in her home, given to her apparently by her Aunt Gertrude on her 20th birthday." Who cares, I ask you?

My mother loved autobiographies, so long as they were written by brilliant people and/or focused on subjects that were close to her heart (the theater, science fiction, Zionism & Israel…) Among her favorites were Neil Simon's memoirs, Rewrites and The Play Goes On; Golda Meir's autobiography My Life; and Stephen Fry's Moab Is My Washpot -- an autobiography of the first 20 years of his life; Clara was so sorry he stopped there, that she wrote to Fry to tell him how much she enjoyed his book and asked him to write another, of the next twenty years… He answered very kindly, but declined. (Am scanning his letter for you as I write, so scroll down to see it.) She also read Woody Allen's biography by Eric Lax, and at least one memoir by Isaac Asimov, I'm not sure which one - he wrote several.

Most of the above are on my bookshelf, of course, just waiting to be read… The only one I read so far, quite a while ago, is Rewrites. What can I tell you – pure agony, what a writer goes through. You read or watch a Neil Simon play, and the witty, funny dialog flows so naturally, so effortlessly. Ha! There's never writing, there's only rewriting, say the real pros.

Clara (a.k.a Mom), too, wrote her memoirs. She wrote them in longhand and dictated them to me on weekends when she stayed with us. I have plenty of letters, diaries and notebooks that can help me fill in gaps, if any. I do intend to complete that document one of these days, before it's too late, bind it and give it to her closest friends and family – should they be interested. I won't blame them if they decline. You can love and admire a person but not have the patience to wade through their autobiography.

And so – I said to myself – I shall do my best with translating the autobiography of the American gentleman mentioned in my previous post, in the hope that some of his kith and kin will read and appreciate it. But meanwhile, the project has been put on hold, or given to someone else, or perhaps canceled. Funnily, I'm a bit curious about this man's history. Maybe I'll read it all the same…

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

Brush up your Grossman

2010-09-01T23:16:00.000+03:00

The other day I started a new translation project. It's a biggie – over 44,000 words – and – surprise, surprise – it's a rush job. Why did I agree? Heaven knows. Probably because I'm tired of doing little bits and pieces and would rather sink my keyboard keys into a longish, hopefully consistent text. And also because the text is a manuscript, the memoirs of an elderly gentleman, and as such I deem it important. A mitzvah, if you will.

Thing is, the author is American, and the manuscript is in English, which means the translation is into Hebrew. Theoretically, shouldn't be a problem. Been there, done that, and so on; I'm a native Hebrew speaker, lived and studied here in Israel… But after a lengthy period of translating mostly Hebrew > English, I have to brush up my active Hebrew. I need the words to come to me quickly and easily. Can't afford to wrack my brain and agonize over it.

A case in point occurred fairly early on in the text. A certain character's occupation was described – though not in so many words – as a carter or wagoner in a shtetl. The text used the Yiddish word, which was foreign to me. My mind went totally blank. I consulted an online English/Yiddish dictionary, (completely forgetting that I have the original 1928 hardcover on my shelf) but had difficulty finding the word I wanted, because it was misspelled in the manuscript. I gave up in disgust.

Solution? Or rather, pre-emptive action? – Pick up a well-written Hebrew novel and read it, to rev up the literary Hebrew generator, as it were. Especially in this case, since the text calls for elegant, high register Hebrew. Chatty everyday language or cool, modern-day Etgar Keret type style won't cut it.

I can do that. As a matter of fact, the pile of unfinished books on my night table (which includes, for instance, Graham Greene's A Burnt-Out Case and Stamboul Train, mentioned previously on this blog, also includes an Amos Oz and a David Grossman – my two favorite Hebrew writers. Respectively, these are Rhyming Life and Death, and Her Body Knows – Two Novellas.

But as good and enjoyable as these two may be, it means I must put down the book I am currently reading, viz., Terry Pratchett's Unseen Academicals, with its biting social satire and quirky characters.

It was quite a relief to revert to Pratchett after the last book I read – Larry Niven's A World Out of Time. I found JB Corbell's adventures in Time and Space very tiring, in addition to downright scary at times. I do most of my reading around bedtime, and prefer not to read scary stuff, lest it should give me nightmares.

But I digress.

Back to the problem at hand. As I got up for my lunch-break, an old Hebrew song suddenly started playing itself, loud and clear, in my head: "Kor'im lo Lipa ha'eglon…" [Lipa the carter/wagoner]
Problem solved, this time around.

I really ought to pick up that Grossman. Or Oz.

Dead Copywriting for the Dead Sea

2010-08-11T19:06:00.001+03:00

It's difficult to write original copy for any location or project associated with the Dead Sea. Whether you're promoting its hotels and spas, its beauty-care products, its natural wonders or anything else. Seems that everything has been said.

Having written, translated and edited a lot of that type of text, I thought I was inured to the common, trite and/or pretentious bla-bla. But one writer (I don’t want to know who) managed to surprise me. I'll call him Yankele for the sake of convenience.

Yankele wrote, for example:

- תוכלו גם לטבול במי מרפא טבעיים וחיים
Tuchlu gam litbol b'mei marpeh tivi'im ve-hayim.
Excuse me? You can dip in what kind of natural, healing water? The Dead Sea as a source of mayim hayim? The connotation of this idiom is refreshing, potable water.

- תוכלו למרוח את גופכם בבוץ השחור ולחוש את הבריאות מחלחלת אל כל תא בגופכם
Tuchlu limro'ach et gufchem babotz ha'shachor ve'lachush et ha'bri'ut mehalhelt el kol ta begufchem.

You can apply the local black mud to your body and feel health as it suffuses every cell of your body.
- Nu, schön, I'll let that pass. If that's what Yankele feels, fine.

- The thermo-mineral water… nourishes the skin, making it shiny and beautiful.
Or something to that effect. Which I think is an exaggerated promise.

- The friendly sun caresses you 330 days a year.
Dead Sea sun, in summer, caressing? At 40 deg. C? Scorching is more like it.

- The only lake in the world in whose water you cannot drown.
This is plain wrong. Of course you can drown. If you're floating comfortably on your back, you're not likely to drown. But many floaters, when attempting to get back on their feet, have found themselves inadvertently face-down in the water. Not fun.

This is just a sample. There were plenty more wild exaggerations and inaccuracies in the text, stemming from either ignorance, provincialism, or just carelessness and being swept away by the desire to write impressive copy.

Though I had been asked to translate the Hebrew text into English, and did my best to side-step the above problems, I couldn't help but express my exasperation with the Hebrew. I provided my client (the Super Duper Agency, not Yankele et al) with a marked-up version of the Hebrew, pointing out the problematic words, expressions and statements. I didn't expect to be paid for this, and indeed Yankele et al refused to pay, which is understandable; they didn't ask for a critique or editing of the Hebrew. The agency, however, appreciated my efforts and said they'd find a way to compensate me, which is very decent of them.

I wondered what would become of the Hebrew text. Would the end-client ignore my comments and use the text as written?... Quick Googling of some of the Hebrew phrases indicated that the text was probably based on the official Dead Sea website. Looks like they wanted a shorter, spiffy version for advertising purposes. I do hope they come up with something better than the document that landed on my desk.

English Editing studies offered at Beit Berl

2010-08-09T11:26:00.002+03:00

Editing is important.
It's a fact of life, there's no getting around it.

In the coming school year, Beit Berl College is offering a program in English editing. The program covers two semesters and the course is given in English. My only complaint is that the relevant web-page is in Hebrew only. If there is an English version somewhere on the site, it is well-hidden.

Want to know more about it? Can't read the Hebrew? A Campus Day (generally referred to in Hebrew as "open day") will be held on September 2nd; and entrance exams on September 5th.

Have fun!

Update:
My colleague Yael Sela-Shapiro has undertaken to call Beit Berl's attention to the omission.
Update to the Update: Here's the info in English, courtesy of Beit Berl:

A Diploma in Editing English

Course Coordinator : Dr Yitzchak Enav

The Beit Berl English Editing Program offers students a range of theoretical and practical studies. The program, about to enter its tenth year, includes courses and workshops on a variety of texts spanning the literary and Judaic to the academic and technical. This hands-on, practical experience prepares editors of English for competent work in their field.

The course is open to Native and Near-native speakers of English and to e graduates of Beit Berl College's English and Translation Departments. No knowledge of Hebrew is required: a welcome fact that makes the course most suitable for new immigrants anxious to equip themselves for their first work in Israel.

Prospective candidates wishing to learn more about the program are invited to visit classes during the academic year.

Course Schedules
The duration of the course is one academic year of some 280 academic hours of study. All classes take place on one day each week. At the core of these studies is a very solid grounding in editing English in general. The courses then focus on several varieties of texts in areas relevant to English editing in Israel.

Conditions of Acceptance
- Computer Literacy
- An entrance examination
- A personal interview with teachers of the program

Course Requirements
- Attendance of at least 80% of the lessons given
- The completion of all written work on schedule.
- The completion of all final projects.

Graduation Certificate:
Graduates are awarded a Beit Berl Academic College, "Diploma in Editing English."

A Brief Description of the Courses

* Aspects of Language: vocabulary, syntax, grammar and discourse
analysis : Dr Pamela Peled
* The Fundamentals of Editing English: Anita Tamari
* The Literary Sources of the English language : a study of varieties of literary texts in their linguistic and cultural context : Dr Yitzchak Enav

Textual Varieties
• Editing the Technical Text: Shirley Gamaroff
• Editing the Academic Text: Anita Tamari
• Editing the Business and Marketing Text: Renee Salzman
• Editing the Journalistic Text: Carol Novis
• Editing the Judaic Text: Ilana Krauss
• Editing the Medical Text : Dr Neil Schwartz
• Editing the Legal text: Roy Engel
• Editing the Literary- Critical Text

• Creative Writing: Lia Nirgad
• Workshops in Profession Readiness : Dr Doron Narkiss and Shirley Zauer

Listen to your gut feelings

2010-07-25T19:11:00.000+03:00

Clara (a.k.a. Mom) was blessed with what I called a built-in b.s. detector for literature, or almost any book, in fact. She had never officially studied literature or literary analysis, but she always read, all the time (as did my dad.) When I was studying English Lit & Linguistics at Tel Aviv University in my early twenties, she studied vicariously: she read all the books on my Required Reading list, though she was already familiar with many and was merely re-reading them (Steinbeck, Twain, etc). She then read my handwritten papers and corrected my English before I typed them up on the huge, clunky Underwood. And she read my exam papers when I came home triumphantly waving my high-marked exams on Henry James, Walt Whitman, Shakespeare etc. But I do not flatter myself that I, or Tel Aviv University, in any way contributed to her inner b.s. detector; it was an innate quality. We – I and TAU – may have just reinforced it.

Clara used to read a story, novel, script or newspaper article and instinctively, unerringly know whether it was good, indifferent, or downright bad. She'd have a hard time explaining in detail, if you asked her. But most times I didn't need to ask. Her brief report and very expressive face gave me all the information I needed.

I didn't quite inherit this trait of Clara's. But I do have something similar, and akin to it, I think. You probably have it, too. It's the gut-feeling that tells you when a certain job is not right for you and you should turn it down: flatly, unequivocally, without hemming and hawing or explaining. Just say No and walk away.

It may be a copywriting or marketing project; it may be a translation or editing job; it may be something else relevant to your field. The phone rings, or an email pops up in your mailbox. The client thinks it's right up your alley; or else he needs it urgently; or no one else wants it; or it's just a seemingly-routine job. You listen, or look at the text or website, and a slight nauseating feeling begins to form in the pit of your stomach; your upper lip twitches in that tiny sneer demonstrated so well by Tim Roth in the TV series Lie to Me. Your inner voice is tugging at you saying "this is trouble; stay away; say no." But for some reason, you switch the warning bells off and take the job. Maybe you didn't have anything else on your desk at that moment and panicked a bit. Maybe the client was very persuasive. Maybe you thought you could fit it into your schedule. Maybe, maybe, maybe. Whatever the reasons, you live to regret it. The text is horrible / badly written / incomprehensible / boring to tears / infuriating; the pay is lousy; the client a terrible nag or else evasive and unreachable; the thing drags on forever; it gets too complicated, out of hand. Any or all of the above, or plenty of other equally disturbing developments.

The long and the short of it is: you should have listened to your gut feeling.

You know those Nike ads where you see a person jogging energetically, with the slogan "Just do it"? Sure you do. Well, create a mirror image of it, so that the person is running away from the target.. and change the slogan to read "Just say no". Then hang it somewhere conspicuous and contemplate it once a day.

Things Clara Taught Me

2010-07-17T17:20:00.000+03:00

A whole year has passed since my mom, Clara Caren Rimon, died. At the time, I was at a loss for words. I wrote something in this blog – then closed the door and shifted my attention elsewhere, where it was needed.

Now, on her yahrzeit, I pulled out a big basket of photos and a load of video cassettes. The video cassettes are much more fun: I watched Clara singing, dancing and acting. By a quirky coincidence, Israel TV's Channel 2 today aired an old Israeli musical -- Hamesh Hamesh -- in which Clara had a part! She even appears on the movie's poster.

And I got to thinking of all the things – theoretical and practical, emotional and logical – that I learnt and absorbed from her during my life, whether directly and explicitly -- because she told me so -- or implicitly – through her actions, attitude, personal example.

Here's a very random, partial list, of things I learnt:

To recite nursery rhymes to my kids ("There was an old lady who lived in a shoe…")
To sing lullabies to my kids ("Rock a by baby, in the tree top…")
To read to them at bedtime, and other times, from A.A. Milne, Dr. Seuss, "I Wish that I Had Duck Feet…"
Always wear an apron when working in the kitchen
When boiling potatoes, add salt if you intend to mash them; don't add salt if you want them whole.
When peeling boiled potatoes-in-their-jackets, use a sharp knife and dip it often in ice water.
Don't waste food. Use leftovers imaginatively.
Invite people over for dinner often. Especially people who have no family in the country.
Keep a shopping list on the fridge door. Add items during the week, as the need arises. Don't let yourself run out of staples. "What?? We're all out of sugar??" – Not in my house!
Label things before putting them in the freezer. In fact, label everything.
Remember to take the shopping list with you when you go shopping.
The first-aid items that are the answer to nearly everything: Aspirin; Vaseline; Band-Aids; iodine/Mercurochrome/Gentian Violet; salt water (for gargling); hot water bottle.
Touch-typing is an invaluable skill.
Save scratch paper – use the reverse side of typed material; re-use envelopes; recycle greeting cards.
How to hem a dress or a pair of pants
How to knit.
Make Purim costumes
It's impolite to ask personal questions or make personal comments.
Always say Please and Thank you.
Danny Kaye
Allan Sherman; Tom Lehrer
Charlie Chaplin
Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, Cyd Charisse, Ginger Rogers, Leslie Caron
Science Fiction; Isaac Asimov – his fiction and nonfiction
Keep pens & pencils everywhere; also elastic bands; scotch tape; scissors; gummed labels.
Take an afternoon nap. Do not call people between 2-4 p.m.
Never marry a man who drinks [to excess] or gambles
Keep track of everyone's birthdays and anniversaries; send cards; if you can't afford to buy them, make your own.
Stand up straight. Don't slouch. Shoulders back. Hold your tummy in. Get your hair out of your eyes.
Look after your back. Bend from the knees, not from the waist.
Dance, dance, dance. Ballet, modern dance, folk dancing.
Appreciate classical music.
If you have a talent, use it.
Don't sit at home and expect the world to come to you. Go out and introduce yourself.
Smile.

… and so it goes. I'm sure my kids can add plenty. And by the time I post this, I will have remembered a dozen other things. Isn't that wonderful?

On the Trail of Language

2010-06-23T19:07:00.000+03:00

Gosh, it's been a while. Not that I haven't had what to say; but I've said it mostly in my new blog, Nina Makes Tracks. That's because I've been on the road for the past few weeks, and am continuing my journey.

Previously, when I've been away on a trip, I tried to limit my blogging here to language related issues, with a rather broad definition of "language related". So before embarking on this-here trip, I thought I'd split my experiences and impressions into trip-related and language-related. Not sure how well that is working out; obviously, the two are interwoven.

Nonetheless, here are a few language-related things I came across along the way:

1. Turnout (American) vs. Layby (British)
As you drive along narrow, winding country roads, every once in a while you have a sort of bay on the side of the road that lets you pull over and let other vehicles pass you, whether in the same direction or coming from the opposite direction.
I've gotten used to the British term "layby", while the American term still sounds funny to me: "turnout" is the number of people who show up for a lecture or event.
E.g.: The lecture on the translation of sex scenes had a very good turnout, whereas the AGM had a rather poor turnout.

2. On our RV trip, we keep buying bottled water, since we've been driving through some pretty arid areas and not all places where we stop have potable water. Generally, we simply buy the cheapest on offer. The last batch we bought was labeled Niagara - purified drinking water. This had me smiling. For Americans and Canadians, this is obviously a perfectly good name, calling to mind torrents of cool, natural water. For Israelis, on the other hand, "niagara" is a synonym for the toilet tank of a flush toilet.

3. While in Las Vegas, we were lucky enough to be taken to see a performance of Cirque du Soleil's production, "Love", set to music of the Beatles. It was magnificent. After the show, I leafed through the program, Inside Cirque du Soleil, Spring 2010. And guess what I found on page 20, in the article The 10 Commandments of Sensuality. The caption for the two photos illustrating Commandment #5 reads as follows: "Nordic God (white shorts) and Dark Knight (black shorts) in the throws of a feverish dance exploring the depths of love and anger." [Emphasis mine].

C'est tout pour aujourd'hui, mes amis.

The open road calls. The RV is "good to go", as they say here.
We continue to travel towards Yellowstone.

Of Lectures and Presentations

2010-05-27T16:57:00.000+03:00

Once again, I missed a good lecture/ presentation offered by the ITA.
I refer to Stephen Rifkind's Improving the Quality of Presentations; a Very Important Subject, as all speakers and conference attendees will agree.

My excuse for not attending was that I had a house-guest, a dear friend from London. She was staying for just over a week and I didn't want to go away for an entire afternoon/evening.
But the reason I didn't go, I'm ashamed to admit, is the practically insurmountable distance. Can you imagine, traveling ALL THE WAY from Rishon to Haifa, and back again? In one afternoon/evening? It's a cross-country trip! It's all the way from what Tel Avivians consider The Gate to the South to what Rishonites consider Up North.

I'm sure the lecture & presentation were edifying, useful and interesting, and the loss is all mine.

I would, however, like to take advantage of your (hopefully) being in the right frame of mind to give you a few complementary tips about public speaking. Not my own, but from my friend, coach Marion Claire of Los Angeles. Years before she became a personal coach (what Israelis call "coacher", shudder shudder), Marion was a script writer and editor, who most definitely has a way with words, a way with people, and a way of getting her words across to people.

Since copy-pasting the article in question is technically awkward at the moment, here's the link to Marion's Speaker's Tip #10 - Ten Rules for the Reluctant Speaker: http://archive.constantcontact.com/fs011/1102717540757/archive/1103241326454.html. Enjoy.

What are you talking about when you talk about golf

2010-05-08T11:25:00.005+03:00

I don't know a thing about golf. Haven't even read all the gossip about Tiger Woods.
What I do know is gleaned from the movies Tin Cup and The Legend of Bagger Vance, and as such doesn't count for much. In Tin Cup I was caught up in the Kevin-and-Renee scenes while repressing the drunken-nogoodnik aspect which tends to get on my nerves; and in Bagger Vance, the feel-good atmosphere did make me feel good, even though I scoff at mysticism.

There's a good review of Tin Cup on IMdb by a Finn fella:

"I have seen this film 20 times, and it only gets better," said Max Koljonen from Helsinki, Finland, on 2 January 2004, and elaborated as follows:
"First of all, this is a golf film. A great golf film. The best golf film. But there is more to it than just being a golf film. It´s the classic tale of a washed-up hero wanting to get the girl. But Kevin Costner gives this role something more. Okay, it´s not an Oscar-winning role, but the performance sure as heck should be.
And it´s nice to see a golf film with a screenwriter who actually seems to know what the game really is about. For those who are not into golf, just look at Mr. Costner´s every move and how he delivers his lines as a drunken golf pro. In fact the whole cast is excellent. In comparison to films like Bagger Vance, Happy Gilmore and Caddyshack this film is the only one that explains why we men are so hooked on this game." [more]

Well, I enjoyed the film, but "why men are so hooked on this game" is still a mystery to me, and one I can easily live with; that is, without solving.

So, naturally, I was a bit skeptical when my son handed me a book of short stories – albeit by one of my fave writers – titled The Heart of a Goof – all about golf. The preface to the stories is so "golfy", it only reinforced my feeling of total ignorance.

But anyone who can write a dedication like the one below, wins me over at the first tee:

TO MY DAUGHTER LEONORA
WITHOUT WHOSE NEVER-FAILING SYMPATHY
AND ENCOURAGEMENT THIS BOOK
WOULD HAVE BEEN FINISHED IN
HALF THE TIME

Chuckling and encouraged, I began reading, and have been chuckling my way through the adventures of Ferdinand Dibble and his nemesis George Parsloe, Bradbury Fisher, Vosper the butler, the formidable Mrs Maplebury, and others. Wodehouse fans – if you haven't yet read this one, you're in for a treat. I shall say no more, not to ruin it for you. Oh, and while you're at it, you can try an early one – Love Among the Chickens – too. Though the Stanley Featherstonehaugh Ukridge (pronounced "Fanshawe Ewkridge") character is, um… but you should find out for yourselves.

Bumps Along the Way of Words

2010-04-17T14:39:00.009+03:00

The first bumps along my daily way with words emerge in the morning, at the breakfast table, while I'm having breakfast. I often jot them down, but they seem too small or trivial in themselves to merit a separate post. Silly attitude, because they continue to fester and annoy me.

Here are a few such bumps, some of them of a recurring nature:

1. What is it with Israelis, writers of Hebrew, that they're so scared of committing themselves to numbers, to exact figures? Naturally, there are cases where an estimate or caution are called for, and you qualify your number with "about". But writers of Hebrew seem to take it to extremes. They refuse to be pinned down.
E.g.
"… the company has around 25 branches…"
What's the matter, can't you count? Or is it a matter of the Uncertainty Principle? Do branches keep closing down and opening, so no one is ever sure, at any given moment, how many there are?
Would you say the building you live in has "around 12 floors"? I can understand your saying "around 150 people live in my building", because you don't know all the families and you don’t know how many kids each family has… who can keep track, Uzi et al just moved out, Bracha just gave birth again…

It gets worse when they write בערך כ- b'erech ke – or, literally: approximately about.

2. You know how much Israelis like to throw in English words. A popular one is "attractive", used like this, for example:
סביבת קניות מושכת ואטרקטיבית
Svivat kniyot moshechet ve'attraktivit.
How is one supposed to translate it? An attractive and attractive shopping environment?
Well, actually, no. Writers of Hebrew often (or usually) use the adjective "attraktivi" in the sense of worthwhile; attractive because it's profitable. So an innocuous-looking four word phrase in Hebrew turns out to require a workaround in English. Bother.
Anyone feel like trying?

3. "The cream absorbs right away…" – so says the reviewer of various skin care products in the Lookin' Good section of the J. Post's Weekend magazine. I rather like that section, because I like reading reviews of cosmetic and skin-care products I'll never buy. But this recurring mistake bothers me. Absorb is a transitive verb; the cream itself doesn't absorb anything, but is absorbed by the skin. Shame I didn't buy that Nuxe moisturizer while it was on special; I definitely don't intend to shell out NIS 241 for it.

4. Kanyon G Rothschild, the small, noisy mall that I cross twice a week (if I'm conscientious about attending exercise class, located behind that building), has ads in the local paper, advertising its newish household and knickknack shop, Enter. Guess what Enter offers you as incentive to browse and shop?

תחתית מפנקת לספל – tachtit mefaneket le'sefel
– a pampering coaster for your cup. Complete with a picture of a pale-blue hand-shaped coaster. How exciting! A pampering coaster! Who or what exactly is being pampered here? My mug? My desk? Me, seeing that my precious mug is enjoying resting on a ghostly blue hand-shaped thingy?...

5. A current text about shopping centers that I recently translated contained the following sentence:
למעלה ממאה אלף מבקרים, המצביעים ברגליים ומספקים הוכחה יומיומית להצלחת הקונספט.
Literally: More than 100,000 visitors, voting with their feet, are daily proof of the success of the concept.
I googled, and in Hebrew it seems that "voting with your feet" is used to express support. In English, however, "voting with your feet" means showing your dissatisfaction. FYI.

6. For the grand finale of this post, I chose the most pretentious bit of copywriting I've seen in a long time. The contractor Gindi is building a new development in Nachlat Yehuda, the area just north of Rishon LeZion. It's called Nachlat HaHadasha – New Nachlat, and boasts expensive new homes, some of them fashionable lofts. So far, so good. Huge signs were erected along the road next to the building site, with the following slogan:

נחלת החדשה: זו לא דירה, זה לא בית פרטי, זו חוויה תלת מימדית מעולם אחר.
Nachlat HaHadasha: Zu lo dira, zeh lo bayit prati, zu havaya tlat meimadit me'olam acher.
In free translation:
New Nachlat: It's not an apartment, it's not a [detached] house, it's a three-dimensional experience from another world.

Yay!

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You've come a long way, babe.

2010-03-20T19:03:00.004+02:00

My Eldest, Daria, is in NYC on business.
The other day, she tells us in an email, a guy at McDonald's asked her where in England she was from… He said no American says "Sorry" (rather than "Excuse me" and "take away" (rather than "to go").
"Shows we brung you up proper-like", replied my British husband proudly.
Good thing she gave herself away, as it were, at a McDonald's and not on a Nazi-infested train in 1944. Remember the scene in The Great Escape?

Truth is, my daughter's linguistic upbringing was a real mishmash. Our home was a way-station for English speakers of all kinds and accents: Lisa from New Jersey, Susie from Manhattan, Lynne from Coventry, Marion from Los Angeles, John from South Africa. Not to mention parents and grandparents with a wide assortment of backgrounds and accents. Daria has a good ear. Just plunk her for a week or two in a certain location, and she picks up the accent, with a vocabulary to go with it. Reminds me of the time she was about 12, on her way back from a short stay in London, when she asked a perplexed El Al flight attendant "where's the loo".

Happily, this babe has come a long way. (Without resorting to Virginia Slims…)

And speaking of cigarettes.

In the March 2010 issue of The Marker's health and life-style magazine with the unimaginative "Hebrew" name Active, on page 23, there's a full-page anti-smoking ad sponsored by the education (?) department of the Health Ministry. The photo shows a close-up of a good-looking, trendily stubble-faced young man, saying something like: "She looked great…[yadda yadda]… but when I leaned over to kiss her, I realized she stank like an ashtray. Ugh. Smoking really puts me off."

Interesting. I don't know what the percentage of women smokers is compared to men, and I'd like to think that the Ministry has a similar ad depicting a woman recoiling from the ashtray breath of a male smoker.

In ads from the 1930s, the situation, as you may well imagine, was altogether different. You have no idea how different. See below: the man blows smoke into the face of a goo-goo eyed beauty with heavily-mascara'ed lashes, who's staring up at her man entranced, and the caption reads: "Blow in her face and she'll follow you anywhere".

I wonder how far this attitude would get you with a woman these days :-)

Of conferences and other joyful events

2010-03-02T16:42:00.003+02:00

Another conference is on the agenda: The City of Rishon LeZion holds an annual conference on the Hebrew Language. Don't know how long this has been going on. I've lived in Rishon for the past 21 years and have only been aware of it for the past two years. But this year, I'm really going to attend. The names of presenters and lecturers are familiar and promising: Dr. Zvia Walden, Avirama Golan, Avshalom Kor, Ruvik Rosenthal, and many more.

Hope to enjoy it and report back to you. That is, if I get in.

Most of the sessions are free. I thought I had plenty of time to call and reserve a seat. Was I ever surprised when I called this morning, a whole week before the event opens, only to be told point-blank that no seats are available. I had no idea there was such a demand in my city for linguistic chatter and banter. How lovely! Mind you, there are always some no-shows, so I do expect I'll be able to get in, at least to some of the sessions.

One specific session, by Dr. Zvia Walden (with whom I worked for a while back in the eighties) I have a solid booking for. To my surprise, I was actually contacted by the Culture department and offered a seat. Probably because I'm on their listing, being a regular at the city's jazz concerts (the fabulous Lenoid Ptashka series).

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A P.S. to my ITA conference lecture and handout:

For weeks after the event, I kept getting requests for my Helpful Glossary and promptly emailed the document to all requesters. Very gratifying, this.

Some people ask me how come I don't mind giving out my carefully-compiled glossary.

- Well, first of all, I'm only giving out a fraction of my personal glossary. Only about 10% of it, if that much. I have plenty more "trade secrets" up my sleeve, or tucked away on my computer.
- Second, my motivation is selfish: I get so irritated by poor translations or silly mistakes in colleagues' work. I'd be much happier if they found my solutions helpful and applied them.
- Third – what have I got to lose? I believe my colleagues stand on their own merit. My glossary is but one helpful tool; I don't see anyone using it in order to steal my customers… And if anyone does, well then, I sure won't give them the next installment of my glossary :-)

Make 'em laugh

2010-02-14T12:42:00.006+02:00

The ITA conference is over. I have a bag full of brochures, colleagues' business cards, and a folder with notes taken during lectures, all of which I intend to go over carefully then file appropriately.

As always, it's good to see friends, exchange "what are you up to these days?", eat too much cake, and attend lectures & presentations.

Ah, about lectures and presentations. It is often quite difficult to choose from the three lectures taking place at the same time. Obviously, not all are in one's sphere of work; not all are relevant to me; and not all will be interesting.

Unfortunately, lectures on some subjects that are truly interesting turn out to be a dull experience. A certain professor, for example, said eminently sensible things in a tone of voice that lulled his listeners to sleep.

The "make 'em laugh" principle always works. Be entertaining, and your listeners will enjoy your lecture; give them something useful to take home, and they'll appreciate it even more.

Extemporaneous humor is a rare gift. No one expects (I hope!) you or me to be like those witty, side-splitting guys and gals that appear on Stephen Fry's QI. Only last night I watched an episode that dealt (among other topics) with the question "why did it take 300 years to give giant tortoises a scientific, Latin name." I shan't tell you the answer, in the hope that you will watch the episode. But once the guests hit on the gist of the answer, they all came up with demonstrations, explications and elaborations that were so funny, they could barely be heard over the roaring laughter of everyone – audience, cast, and my family on the sofa in front of the TV.

Okay, so we've established that a presenter does not have to be a clown. That's a separate occupation. But we should be lively, enthusiastic, and if possible – inject a bit of humor into our presentations.
The easiest thing, perhaps, is to laugh at ourselves. We take our work seriously, but that doesn't mean we have to take ourselves too seriously. My lecture got its biggest laugh when I presented one of the silliest mistakes I ever made… Luckily, it wasn't for a client, it was for my own family.

The slide preceding the Silly Handout was as follows:

Then I handed out copies of the card below, which I had printed for my son's wedding, so as the young couple could send thank-you notes to their guests:

Of course, I would like my lecture to be remembered for more than that blunder… So I also handed out the useful glossary mentioned in my previous post.

As for a review of lectures I attended – my colleague Ruth Ludlam provides a fairly comprehensive review on her blog.
One lecture she apparently didn't attend and which I found fascinating was Shoshana Kordova's Inverting the Pyramid: What you need to know about Journalistic translation. I haven't been following the English edition of Haaretz, and so wasn't aware of what the paper's [English] editors were up against.

Can't complain, though… if everyone produced perfect translations, what would be left to entertain readers and listeners with? I might be reduced to learning how to tap dance…

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Putting my presentation in your hands

2010-02-01T12:20:00.005+02:00

"A poem is never finished, only abandoned," said French poet Paul Valery, and I bet it sounds much more poetic in French.

Same goes for most everything you write, except mundane pieces like letters to the authorities complaining about the recent mistake they made in your taxes.

But when it comes to a paper you have to submit or a presentation you have to give, there's a deadline, and at some point you say "this is it", save the file, and let it go.

That's the point I have reached with the presentation I'll be giving at the ITA conference in Jerusalem, on Feb 10th, 2010.

The presentation, called First Aid for Translators & Editors, is aimed at beginners in this field. In 40 minutes or less (leaving time for Q&As, ) I want to tell them as much as I can in order to make their lives in this profession easier, point them in the right direction, help them avoid pitfalls, and give them a few ready-made solutions to common problems.

That's a lot to accomplish in 40 minutes. I know I don't have to do it all myself. My lecture is the first (along with two others, in the same time-slot) on the third day of the conference. Several of my colleagues will be speaking on subjects similar to mine, from slightly different perspectives, giving more information, more advice. So it's not as if this effort is all up to me. Nonetheless, I want to impart to my audience as much good stuff as possible. And I mean really handy stuff. The nuts and bolts. The hammer, nails and pliers, as my friend and colleague Vered Mosenzon would put it: the hammer and nails to drive in the right words, the pliers to pull out the superfluous or the crooked ones.

I've done my best, considering that one can always do better given just a bit more time to go over one's presentation one more time…

To supplement my presentation, I've prepared a basic Hebrew/English glossary of 200 entries painfully -- and I mean painfully -- chosen out of many hundreds of entries in my personal glossary built over years of work. My intention was to save new translators the agony, headache and puzzlement over awkward Hebrew words and expressions such as tofes 17, tofes tiyulim, teken, rosh gadol, etz sendvich, mashkiaan, legabesh, and many more. As an in-house editor, I used to cringe at some misunderstandings and mistranslations. This is my opportunity to help diminish similar mistranslations in the future.

Two qualifications:
1. Context, context, context. While I personally may favor "as part of…" as a translation of the ubiquitous "b'misgeret", sometimes "framework" is exactly what's called for. Nothing is carved in stone.
2. The glossary contains many suggestions made by my fellow translators over the years. Some were sent as a response to my monthly Editor's Letter; others are to be found on the various translators' lists and forums. So though this list is mine in the sense that I compiled it, the information in it has been contributed by many. Thank you all.

See you at the conference!

Notes away from home

2010-01-29T17:03:00.004+02:00

Knowing I'd be flying BA, I actually went as far as not packing anything to read! Passing Steimatzky's in the airport, I was nearly tempted to buy a Cosmo, just in case. But didn't. And did not regret it.

I actually enjoy flying BA. I swear I'm not being paid to say so. Aside from the friendly crew and the half-decent food (as airline food goes) and the choice of free red or white wine with the meal, I enjoy the in-flight entertainment program. There's a huge choice of music of every type, and a terrific choice of movies, both old and new, as well as TV shows & series. And more stuff that I can't say much about because I've never bothered trying.

But once we're comfortably settled in our New Eltham home, it's a different story. I can't possibly fall asleep at night without reading. A newspaper doesn't qualify – too unwieldy.

I packed in my suitcase a book I received by special delivery the very day of our flight: How My Mother Accidentally Tossed Out my Entire Baseball-Card Collection (and Other Sports Stories) by the writer and self-proclaimed sports fanatic Bob Mitchell. Bob is the gifted guy who is editing the book I recently translated – Vered Mosenzon's The Yellow Toolbox. Actually, he has just finished editing it. I'm dying to see what he's done with it, but have had to concentrate on more urgent things. I've just started the book; not sure how much sports-related stories I can take per day.

Bob suggested that I start with an essay called How Do I Hate Thee? which describes his love-hate, or admiration-hate relationship with the winning teams and sports stars who beat his home-team. My lack of familiarity with American sports put a damper on this one. The only names I recognized were Jackie Robinson, King Lear and Oedipus. (You wanna know how they fit in? Read the book.)

The second essay Bob recommended, with good reason, was The King of Ibn Gvirol, describing Bob's rollerblading days in Tel Aviv of 1994. That was actually a very colorful and spirited description. And, knowing Tel Aviv, I could actually see the scene in my mind's eye. For example:
"On top of it all, Israeli drivers are pretty possessive about their own space. They see pedestrians as obstacles; so when they see a crazy, cockamamey blader, in full regalia (funky wraparound sunglasses, neon-green kneepads, purple handguards, purple shorts and matching Williams College T-shirt), well, they see red."

Yesterday, among other errands, we stopped at our fave bookstore, Waterstones. If you don't know exactly what you're looking for, it's hopeless. You strain your neck looking sideways at book spines, you read name after name, catchy or kooky title after title, each trying to be more unique, titillating and witty than the other, and you end up too confused to make a decision. And so it happened that my husband chose a couple of fantasy books by a writer he likes, Raymond E. Feist; and I played it safe and bought a Graham Greene – Stamboul Train. And for a lark we also bought The QI Book of General Ignorance, with a foreword by Stephen Fry and four words by Alan Davies.

With this happy thought I leave you guys for now.

The Secret of Trivia Questions

2010-01-02T15:57:00.003+02:00

Writing trivia questions (and answers) may sound like fun, and it can be fun, but it's far from easy. A while back, my daughter Daria wrote questions and answers for a certain popular TV quiz show, and later for a newspaper. The whole family pitched in with ideas and suggestions. We had a ball.

Last night I actually dreamt I was being interviewed (for some obscure reason) by a panel of learned men, who were shooting obscure "general knowledge" questions at me. I was at a loss and felt quite discombobulated. That's what comes of watching too much Weakest Link, and from trying to translate a poorly thought-out trivia quiz for a large skincare company.

Now, why Mineral Skin Wonder decided to create a trivia quiz is beyond me. I couldn't even figure out, nor was I told, who the target audience was. If it's for company employees, then old-timers might know most of the answers, while newcomers wouldn't, unless they were forced to study the Company History upon being hired. If it's for potential clients, perhaps with the incentive of winning a kit with free Mineral Skin Wonder samples, then, what can I say, the quiz is a total wash-out.

You could say that, when it comes to a TV show, the nature of the presenter (Anne Robinson, Stephen Fry) and the atmosphere of the show (The Weakest Link, QI) are as important, if not more important than, the actual questions. Obviously, some questions cause you to raise an eyebrow and mutter "who the … cares!" Other questions, to which you know the answer, make you feel quite smug. In case you didn't know the answer, are not a contestant, but you've learnt something new, you may be pleased. But the bottom line is, stupid questions, totally uninteresting questions, remain so in whatever medium.

Below are a few questions of the "who gives a …" variety. So as not to leave you in suspense, the correct answer appears in italics.

What were the first three products created by Mineral Skin Wonder?
1. Body lotion, cleansing cream, moisturizing cream
2. Hand cream, foot cream, body lotion
3. Moisturizer, mineral mud, bath salts
4. Body lotion, mineral mud, bath salts
5. Shampoo, conditioner and body lotion

Actress Dropdead Gorgeous' visit in Israel in the summer of 2008 received wide media coverage. How many separate mentions of this event appeared in all media outlets at that time?

1. 61
2. 64
3. 67
4. 69
5. 120

The production plant contains about [sic!] 4 huge pots used for cooking. What's the difference between the four?
[What's the matter – can't anyone at the company count to four without getting confused?]

1. The only difference is in their capacity. (up to 1,200 kg; up to 800 kg; up to 500 kg; up to 20 kg.)
2. Usage: 2 large pots for various uses; the medium size is for butters / masks, and the small one for experimentation.
3. There are 2 large pots and 2 medium sized pots, according to the quantity of materials used.
4. Each pot is made of a different type of metal, according to its resistance to the various temperature required in cooking.
5. Answers 1 & 2 are correct.

I'm not sure I have chosen the worst questions; there were quite a few vying for the title.

Oh well. I think I'll watch a couple of episodes of QI now to take the taste away.

Wishing you all a happy, entertaining and illuminating 2010!

A slogan for the Ministry

2009-12-29T17:09:00.002+02:00

The phone rings and my fave agency, Fair Translations, is on the line:

"Can you translate this slogan for us? Like, right now? The Ministry for Public Befuddlement has launched a new website and wrote this short slogan in Hebrew. It looked so simple… but I guess it isn't… so can you translate it please?... Uh, we're not charging the Ministry for it, so you realize we can't pay much…"

Why on earth is the agency not charging the Ministry – which must be pretty rich, considering we are constantly befuddled by it and pay a nifty monthly fee for this privilege – for the English slogan? Did the company that built the website and the advertising agency that came up with the Hebrew slogan do the work for the Ministry for free?

As it happens, Ms. Fair caught me in-between jobs, my head was clear, and I came up with a few slogans within minutes. I have no idea which one the Befuddlement guys will choose – probably the driest, most uninteresting one… I still have no idea how much I'll be paid for this job. Whatever. I've had a good working relationship with this agency for several years now, and I'd much rather help them than leave them in the lurch.

As for the Ministry – next time I need anything from them, maybe I can call in the favor? Tell them they owe me one?...

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Update and anticlimax:

Ms. Fair called back, confused:
That's not what she meant… it's not the slogan that needed translation… what she actually meant was the title of the web page… or the name of the service being offered… or…
I referred her to today's Jerusalem Post, whose correspondent had already translated the name of the service in question quite adequately.

But who knows – maybe the Ministry will like my slogan and use it anyway some day...

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What to read in a hospital waiting room

2009-12-20T18:20:00.005+02:00

A person going in for one-day hospitalization probably doesn't need to take with any reading material. Not so the relative or close friend accompanying the patient.
So while my husband was packing his assorted test results, doctor's referral and such papers, I packed half a dozen Sudokus, a company profile in need of re-writing, the December issue of The Marker, earphones for my iPod Shuffle & Palm, and a Grisham – just in case.
I even considered bringing along my cute Eee, but decided against it, for reasons of extra weight and the concentration it requires. Must say, though, it would at least have kept my lap warm in that freezing waiting room. (Designed probably to freeze any stray swine-flu bugs in mid-flight.)

Concentration is exactly what one has difficulty with when hanging around a hospital waiting room, even when the surgery is – as was my husband's case – more limb-threatening than life-threatening. The crowd of family & friends tends to cluster around the thin, large monitors displaying the names of the patients and their whereabouts in the system.

Compared to the cramped, dingy, windowless, underground family waiting room at Ichilov hospital, the spanking-new Assuta Ramat HaHayal lounge is a five-star hotel. Airy and spacious, emphatically modern in design, with reasonably comfortable seats, some arranged in rows, others in clusters around low tables. At each end of the rectangular hall is a desk with a few hospital clerks, some more helpful than others. And at one end there are the coffee and soft-drink spouting machines. No snack dispenser, as far as I recall. If it had one, it must have not stocked any of my fave snacks, which is why it did not leave its mark, neither on my memory nor on my waistline.

Though the facility gives the distinct impression of not being completed yet, it does have some basic amenities for visitors called in Hebrew "melavim", i.e. those who come with the patients and then hang anxiously around. There's an Arcafe coffee shop, a Steimatzky book store, and a Metuka confectionary (sorry, they don't have an English site). So if you haven't brought a sandwich from home, you won't starve. Actually, if you just step out onto HaBarzel street, your options are nearly endless. Cafes, restaurants, and quite a few interesting-looking shops. In the days preceding the surgery, I saw myself, in my mind's eye, exploring them all. But I didn't – I stayed with the rest of the pack, close to the monitors.

I somehow managed one Sudoku without making a mess of it. The Marker proved to be too depressing: article after article telling me how the banks and investment houses were taking a huge chunk out of my investments and savings.
The company profile made no sense. (Surprise, surprise.)
That left Grisham.

I think I started reading John Grisham in the mid nineties, with The Firm, The Client, The Rainmaker, and A Time to Kill – each gripping and good in its own way. Then I came across a few that left a bad taste in my mouth, for various reasons. The Partner, for example, contains some distasteful, ugly torture scenes: the protagonist undergoes dreadful torture to protect his ill-gained money. Something about the plot is very dry and technical. Also, the entire story hinges on the absolute, total trust the protagonist has in his lover. I won't go into details to avoid a spoiler.
The Testament left me cold. The description of greedy heirs was as good as the description of greed in most of Grisham's novels. The quest through the wetlands of Brazil was interesting. What is wishy-washy is the Rachel Lane bit – character, motive, behavior… a missionary living with an indigenous tribe and carrying out "God's work." Not that such people don't exist. But it was unconvincing, unsatisfying.

The Brethren were also distasteful; the convoluted plot did not make up for that. And then, in December 2001, I read A Painted House, which is a complete departure from his white-collar crime novels. This Grisham story, with its portrayal of poor farmers in Arkansas, feels like it's trying hard to be Steinbeck, but it ain't. On page 150 the plot finally thickens and the story begins to gather momentum. I think 150 pages of exposition is way, way too much. Think of what other writers (Kazuo Ishiguro and Emile Ajar, to name but two) have accomplished in 150 pages. There's a conflict, a bad guy, a bit of a mystery… but it's neither here nor there. It's not The Grapes of Wrath and it's not a real thriller.
The Summons (read in February 2003) was – guess what - all about greed, and the two protagonists – the brothers – were unappealing, each in his own way, so that I didn’t really care who gets the money. The writing is sloppy and therefore annoying. Grisham doesn’t seem to have a clear idea who his protagonists are. Choice of words and descriptions of actions are often haphazard, no good reason for including or excluding them, they don’t serve any purpose. The dead judge is the strongest character in the book, which may be intentional, or perhaps stems from the fact that he is based on a real person that was very clear to Grisham. Anyway, the book was definitely not one of his best and not very memorable. [The only reason I could write the above paragraph is because I keep a journal of my reading.]

After these disappointments, I took a break from Grisham and skipped a few of his novels. Until I picked up The Broker.
Well, John Grisham redeemed himself!
Folks, it is a really good action-thriller, with not too much violence and dead bodies. If the book had been written by Ludlum, say, by page 30 there would have been a trail of mutilated bodies lying around. Also, if you don't care for the Italian language and descriptions of Italian cities, you may be tempted to skip a bit here & there. But it's good. Mind you, don't take the spy-related stuff too seriously. As Grisham says in the Author's Note at the end of the book, this is not his forte. I'm sure he did some research, but if you've watched enough spy or detective movies or TV series (how can you not?), you can imagine what a surveillance room or van looks like, and you can invent your own. The important thing is the chase, and the way the good guy outsmarts the bad guys; and the fact that the good guy is not as pure as the driven snow; in fact he was a greedy bastard. But he was caught, he does some penance, learns humility, and redeems himself – just like Grisham redeemed himself in my eyes. It was engrossing, and from a certain point downright unputdownable.

So how much of it did I actually read in the six hours of waiting in the hospital? Not a single page. I told you – you can't concentrate there. On anything. I got talking to two lovely women, one waiting for her daughter, the other for her husband. The latter, it turned out, had studied in the same elementary school (Hess) and high school (Eilon) as I did. We had a whale of a time reminiscing about teachers, their nicknames and their quirks. Really helped pass the time. As for the book -- I could read it anytime. Which I obviously did.

Whose translation is this, anyway?

2009-12-12T17:53:00.005+02:00

On Friday, December 5th Haaretz (and possibly other papers) carried a 7x5 inch ad by Shalem Press, inviting the public to an event celebrating the launching of the first ever full Hebrew translation of Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan. The ad contained the names of several VIPs and luminaries, and of course all relevant details of time and place. What it did not contain was the name of the translator.

Perplexed, I re-read the ad carefully. No, I had not overlooked it. The name of eminent translator Aharon Amir was glaringly missing.

In righteous indignation, and seeing myself as defending the honor of all mistreated translators, I wrote an email to Shalem Press, a division of Shalem Center, pointing out the omission.

I left the research, or at least basic Googling, to later. Which was when I found out that Aharon Amir (who died February 2008) passed away before completing the translation. Or at least, that was what one website said. Other websites make it sound as if Amir had translated the whole thing (from English,) whereas the editor, Menachem Lorberbaum, edited while comparing with the Latin version, and added a preface, notes and a glossary. Surely that was not the reason for omitting Amir's name?...

A letter (i.e. email) of reply arrived a few days later. Naomi Arbel, on behalf of the publishing house, thanked me for calling the omission to her attention. Said it was an oversight that occurred since there was no picture of the book jacket in the ad. (Strange excuse.) She continued to say that Shalem Press are always "very attentive" about having the translator's name on book jackets and in publicity material, and will continue to do so in the future.

Though the excuse sounded lame, I know that mistakes happen, and was pleased that the error would be fixed. Imagine my disappointment when this Friday, December 11, the exact same ad appeared again. No correction.

Now, I know it's a nuisance and probably costly to re-do the ad and insert another line. Though it could be done fairly easily, there is definitely enough space in the ad to make room for another short line of text. But no one bothered. Or maybe they tried and the paper said Sorry, too late. I don't know. It just seems so unfair. Such an important, huge, and probably difficult, book. Amir must have put so much work into it. See Shlomo Avineri's review, published in Haaretz, in Hebrew.

Maariv also published a review of the book, by one Mati Shmuelof who totally ignored the translator. No mention of his name or anything. If it weren't for a short comment at the very end mentioning the notes and Hebrew/English glossary, one could be led to think that he'd read the book in English or Latin. (Fat chance.)

Aharon Amir's list of translating credits is dazzling; surely he doesn't need me to defend his interests, his name? But that's not the point.

How many of you have read, or will ever read, this tome, unless you have to, as part of your studies? That, too, is totally beside the point.

The point is, that credit should be given to the translator. Period.

Would you translate this bank's slogan for free?

2009-12-07T13:15:00.003+02:00

Once again, an Israeli bank demonstrates that it is unwilling to pay a dime to have its advertising – in this case its slogan – translated professionally.

One of my fave agencies called me and asked me to translate an ad for Bank Leumi, slated to be published in the J. Post. This type of job is always a rush job.
I said yes, because I happened to be in-between two other things and could afford to take time out for a 150-word ad.
However, I noticed that the ad ended with a slogan. I told the girl at the agency that I'd translate the ad, but not the slogan. Perhaps the big bank has already had its slogan translated into English (and Russian, and perhaps other languages), in which case it would be silly to re-invent the wheel. On the other hand, if inventing the wheel is called for, it costs money. I am a professional translator and copywriter, I don't create English versions of Hebrew slogans for free. That is, not anymore I don't.

The girl said other translators do it… why, only the other day someone translated a Bezeq ad for them, slogan and all, and didn't make a fuss about it…
I said, well I don't. On principle.
The client (the J. Post? Bank Leumi? Both?) said, that's the way we always do it.
I said, fine, but I don't. On principle.

I sent off the translated ad, minus slogan, to the agency, and apologized for causing them this headache. They now have to find some sucker who will, at a moment's notice, translate the slogan for peanuts. It might turn out good. It might turn out awful. Neither the Post nor Leumi seem to care.

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To be fair, I must admit that in the past, in similar situations, I used to translate the slogan, with or without complaining about it being unfair. Why? Because I could. I suppose it was vanity: it was a challenge, and I got a kick out of being able to quickly think up good copy, natural-sounding English versions of Hebrew slogans. But slowly the realization dawned on me that I was giving away my talent for free. And to whom? Not to some poor, deserving non-profit association, but to the richest business corporations in the country. If I'm so talented, and save everyone involved lots of time and bother by coming up with a solution so fast, I should be paid more, not less, wouldn't you think?

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Obviously, I am not the only one approached by the agencies, and I am not the only one who can do a good job. I think we translators and copywriters should show some solidarity. I think we should all stand up to the big corporations and refuse to work for them for nothing, or next-to-nothing. C'mon guys, show some backbone!

Would you let this bank manage your relationships?

2009-12-06T19:32:00.004+02:00

Once again, an Israeli bank demonstrates that it's not a good idea to scrimp and save when having its huge expensive ads translated from Hebrew to English.

Today's (December 6th, 2009) J. Post carries, on page 5, a huge, yellow ad for Bank Hapoalim, covering nearly the entire page. You can see a snippet of it on the bank's Hebrew website. See it? Green grass, yellow sky, and a text about solar energy and loans for solar systems.
Great idea.
Forget the trivial fact that the English slogan uses superfluous capital letters:
Let the Sun Work for You. Forget other inaccuracies. I can live with those.
But then, after you've presumably been persuaded that this is a good reason to apply for credit or take out a loan, you read the following:

For further information, call your relationship managers, branches, or dial *whatever.

Relationship managers?

I couldn't figure out what they meant. Maybe this is a new term for "private banker", I mused, and clicked on the link provided.
The Hebrew page with the additional information said nothing about relationship managers; it says
לפרטים נוספים יש לפנות לסניפים, למרכזי עסקים או למוקד הייעודי בטלפון כך-וכך
i.e., for further details contact the branches, the business centers or the call center.
So I proceeded to the bank's unimpressive English language site, where the mystery was solved. The hapless translator must have gone to that page, where he/she came upon the following:
"Through our Customer Relationship Managers, our private banking clients benefit from yadda yadda yadda"

I'm quite sure the translator copied the phrase verbatim. Someone must have goofed at the proofreading stage, if there was one, which I doubt.

Once again, I wonder: why would an institution like a bank invest big shekels in an ad, only to make a fool of itself in the English version thereof?

Grievance, Part II – on being an underpaid arbitrator

2009-11-30T12:18:00.002+02:00

Another type of job that I am sometimes called upon to do is checking customer complaints and serving as an arbitrator.
Like reviewing the work of prospective translators, this too is a serious responsibility. And like in the case of reviewing prospective translators, here too a Nameless Agency pays a flat sum that would barely buy you a shawarma & pop.

This is how it usually goes:

Scene 1: Typical day at agency
The client, Mr. Israeli, gave the agency his company profile to be translated from Hebrew to English. Maybe he agreed to pay extra for editing, maybe he didn't. In case of the latter, and if the agency wanted to make a good impression and snag the client for future work, they will have given the job to one of their best translators, to ensure a good product despite not investing in editing. If the client did agree to shell out extra for editing, the job might be given to any translator who happens to be available, but will also be edited by someone capable.

Scene 2: A few days later
Client calls, red in the face. He thinks the translation stinks. Or else he gave it to his buddy who lived in the States for a couple of years and Buddy said it's no good. Client writes scathing email, demands money back. Sometimes he supplies an alternative translation done by someone else, as an example of how it should have been done. Or else he, or Buddy, mark up the document with their changes and comments.

Scene 3: Later the same day
Clerk at agency doesn't understand what all the fuss is about. Calls me. I, sucker that I am for challenges, and curious as the proverbial cat, take the job, even though the pay is, as I said, insulting.

What do I find?
Well, obviously, sometimes the client has a good point, other times he doesn't have a leg to stand on.

The No Leg case:
Often, Mr. Israeli's English is not as good as he thinks it is. He simply does not understand the words, phrases and tone of the translated document. Or else, he had a preconceived notion of what the document should sound like, and is disappointed when it doesn't live up to his expectations. In such cases, I explain that people have different styles, and if you gave the same text to several translators each would produce a different version. Sometimes, it's the register that bothers the client. In which case I have to ask if he gave the agency any guidelines or instructions as to who his target audience is and what sort of style/language he prefers – laid-back and friendly? Jargon-laden? Formal?
A major stumbling block is the original text. It is often very badly written, but how are you going to say that to the client? You can, for example, quote a couple of obscure, ungrammatical, ambiguous sentences, and tactfully point out that it is no wonder that the translator got it wrong.

The Good Point case:
Other times, the client has a good point. The translation is of poor quality. The translator was too literal; chose the wrong words; misunderstood the Hebrew; never heard of style, can't write to save his life, and so on. In such cases, the agency – aside from reimbursing or otherwise appeasing the client – has to do its own reckoning: did they give the job to the wrong translator? (Probably.) Did they give the translator any guidelines? (Possibly.)

What do I do?
After carefully reviewing all the documents involved, marking up the offending translation and the letter/document of complaint, I type up my opinion. Generally, I also explain it over the phone to the clerk at the agency (who may have a fancy job title but usually doesn't know the difference between copywriting, marcom, rewriting, editing and proofreading.) I also add tips on how to handle the irate client and what feedback to give the translator.

What do I get for it?
Barely enough money for a pita with shawarma + can of soda pop, and a pat on the back: "Thanks, you're terrific." Or an incredible "Really? It was that bad???" Or a resigned, "Yeah, I thought that client was trouble when I first laid eyes on his ghastly company profile."

What am I going to do about this sorry state of affairs?
I can't change the way the agency works. I can't teach Mr. Israeli et al how to write. I can't weed out all inept translators. All I can do is refuse to continue doing such responsible work for next-to-nothing, and urge my colleagues to do the same.

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Loans to Whom???

2009-11-18T17:24:00.003+02:00

That's it – Isracard has lost any shred of respect I ever had for it, if I had any.
Bad copywriting reflects badly on the company, in my book.
Their crude Hebrew slogan, "halva'ot le-kooooolam" הלוואות לכוווולם, is bad enough. Yeah, I get the point, I get the visual, I get the message. It's still annoying and infantile. I can ignore it. But when this "gem" gets translated literally into English, the mind boggles.

The offending ad takes up practically an entire page on yesterday's (November 17th) Jerusalem Post. At the bottom, in big red letters, is this scintillating copy:
Loans to a-a-a-all – that's Isracard.

Now, the Hebrew le-kooolam is bad enough. But at least it's idiomatic; people actually talk that way. You can just imagine a kindergarten teacher smiling at her flock and saying, "hineh balonim le-kooolam!" i.e., "Here are balloons for everyone!" That's about how sophisticated this slogan is. But what's this a-a-a-all ??? It's so totally meaningless that it defies contemplation.

I am currently translating one book about advertising & copywriting – Vered Mosenzon's The Yellow Tool Box – while reading another: Don't Mess with the Logo, by Jon Edge & Andy Milligan. I found the following paragraph very appropriate:

"Well, anyway, when you thought of all the reasons you would recommend [brand X] to someone else, were any of those reasons 'You'll love the advertising'? If you answered yes, then you work in advertising or you used to work in advertising or want to work in advertising. Any other sane person would say no."

See, that paragraph describes me. A company's advertising, to me, is definitely part of its brand value. Any company with lousy copywriting loses points and loses some of my trust. Why on earth does Isracard treat us like kindergarten kids? Why don't they care enough to have their ads and slogans re-invented in English? Don't we English-speaking customers count? Don't they want our business? Obviously, paying a copywriter to re-create their message in English is more expensive than telling the J. Post (or any other publication) "oh, just have it translated, I don't care if it's literal, so long as it doesn't cost me extra" – or something to that effect. Yet it irks me. It is unprofessional and short-sighted.

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Hey, Daria -- you're the tops!

2009-11-17T19:00:00.004+02:00

I wanted to give my entrepreneur daughter a compliment. I wanted to tell her she's the tops, she's terrific, she can take over the world. Or that part of the world in which she's most interested, anyway. I was lost for words, and went to my Poetry & Lyrics folder where I keep some of my faves. Below is an excerpt from Cole Porter's You're the Top, from Anything Goes; and here is the whole thing. I'd forgotten how deliciously funny it is:

…
At least it'll tell you how great you are.
You're the tops ...
You're the top, you're the Colosseum,
You're the top, you're the Louvre Museum,
You're a melody from a symphony by Strauss,
You're a Bendel bonnet, a Shakespeare sonnet, you're Mickey Mouse.
You're the Nile, you're the Tower of Pisa,
You're the smile on the Mona Lisa,
I'm a worthless check, a total wreck, a flop,
But if baby I'm the bottom, you're the top.

You're the top you're Mahatma Gandhi,
You're the top, you're Napoleon Brandy ...
You're the top, You're an Arrow collar.
You're the top, You're a Coolidge dollar.
You're the nimble tread of the feet of Fred Astaire.
You're an O'Neill drama, You're Whistler's mama,
You're Camembert.
You're a rose; You're Inferno's Dante,
You're the nose of the great Durante.
I'm just in the way, as the French would say 'de trop'
But if, baby, I'm the bottom,
You're the top.

You're the top, You're a Waldorf salad.
You're the top, You're a Berlin ballad.
You're the baby grand of a lady and a gent,
You're an old Dutch master, You're Mrs Aster,
You're Pepsodent.
You're romance, You're the steppes of Russia,
You're the pants on a Roxy usher.
I'm a lazy lout, that's just about to stop,
But if baby, I'm the bottom,
You're the top.
…..

Now, you tell me: Can I call my firstborn Camembert? Will she really consider it a compliment if I compare her to the Coliseum? Can I tell her "You're Pepsodent" with a straight face?... Perhaps I'll settle for Napoleon brandy. Or just send her a link to the clip on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=My7HaXp1Sq4…

Open letter to the Grievance Committee (that's you guys!)

2009-11-14T16:36:00.002+02:00

I have a grievance I want to share with you all.

A certain translation agency, which shall remain nameless, sometimes asks me to evaluate the work of prospective translators or editors. This involves receiving from the agency a sample text, say two pages long, and its translated or edited version. I'm asked to check the translation or the editing done, and give my opinion in writing, in some detail. I.e. not just "yes, he/she's okay" "no, don't bother with him/her." I think you'll agree with me that this is a very responsible task. For this type of job, they are willing to pay only NIS 30. Flat rate; not even "per unit". I tried to argue, but in vain. Anything higher is considered "exorbitant".

Last time I turned them down, the project manager shrugged her shoulders and said never mind, she'd give the work to someone else.

Obviously, there are "someone elses" out there who take on such work for this ridiculously low rate. I even know one personally -- a highly educated person, a very good translator, who is a member of the ITA and is far from being a starving student who must take any work at any price.

Now, obviously I can't tell people what work to take and what to turn down... But I think anyone who agrees to do this very responsible work for 30 shekels apiece is doing harm to the entire community of translators, and reinforcing agencies' practice of exploiting translators. Mind you, if all good translators/editors refuse to undertake this type of work, the agency might lower its standards and give it to mediocre translators/editors, who might misjudge the work of aspiring translators and thus cause a different kind of damage.

To be fair, I'll add that despite my disapproval and resentment I have in the past taken on such jobs, out of sheer curiosity. I wanted to see what kind of translators and editors are out there, looking for work. I wanted to see for myself how good they were. And if they weren't that good, I wanted to know what kind of mistakes they made, what are the most common pitfalls. I find this kind of information very useful in my work, and in helping other translators avoid said pitfalls. The agency in question was only too happy to take advantage of my weakness and curiosity. Can't blame them. But I have decided to be a collaborator no more.

I actually thought of airing this grievance on the ITA Group website on Yahoo Groups, but was not sure whether there was any point and whether it would serve any useful purpose. At worst, it would trigger a long thread of arguments, stirring up the embers of resentment and discontent without doing anyone any good.

So I thought I'd post it on my blog and get it out of my system. Constructive suggestions welcome.

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Signs Abroad - part II

2009-11-01T18:19:00.002+02:00

... and below is another sign that I liked, because of its casual, chatty, friendly tone. I shall type the text under the pic, because it's a bit fuzzy, even if you click and enlarge it.

This photo was taken at the Lost Gardens of Heligan -- a beautiful place, if you love green thingies like gardens, trees, bushes, hothouses and sample-jungles.

Here's the text:
The Crystal Grotto
I'm sorry that it's still a little mucky in here but
restoration isn't complete yet. The Crystal Grotto is
at first glance a charming, plain, traditional grotto
of the late 18th century, however in its roof, hidden
by gunge, are set crystals. we are reliably informed
by people who visited the gardens in the 1920s
that on summer evenings candles would be
brought out here and the crystals would reflect
light onto the paths. We are setting out to achieve
that again.

Signs Abroad

2009-10-30T16:48:00.012+02:00

If you follow this blog you know by now, that I always take with me a book or two when going abroad, but don't always get to read them. However, being a compulsive reader, I do read other things -- anything within sight.

On our most recent trip, earlier in October (2009), we rented (or hired) a car and toured Cornwall for a few days. Plus a bit of Somerset on the way. One of our last stops was St. Just -- just a little town, nothing special. If you follow the link you'll see the little town square where we parked our blue Seat Leon. But a short drive west brings you to Cape Cornwall -- with a beautiful view of the ocean and a hill with a pillar on top.

Anyway, wandering and admiring the view, I came upon this here bench and sign:

Upon closer inspection, the sign says:

[In case pic isn't clear, the offending phrase is: "The National Trust... needs money for it's work..."]

Well! Who'd have thunk it? Literally carved in stone, for the whole tourist world to see, such a boo-boo!
Haven't written yet to the National Trust. At the bottom, hidden by grass, it says "Please will you help?"
I certainly shall, by sending them a link to this post. Mind you, I'm afraid correcting a mistake etched in stone is rather a nuisance compared to correcting a printing error. On the other hand, who knows how many such stones the National Trust has scattered all over the UK... Wonder if they all contain the same mistake...

But I did also learn something on this same grassy patch, from yet another sign -- click on pic to enlarge and read:
(Should have moved aside a certain blade of grass]

Until I reached the end of the text, I had no idea what a chough was. Did you?

The case against automatic translation tools?...

2009-10-27T21:31:00.004+02:00

My daughter Shira recently signed up for an online newsletter on landscape architecture. The publishing house is German, but the website is in perfectly good English, as well it should be. Um, that is, most of it is. Something seems to have slipped through the cracks. The site editor must have dozed off and forgot to polish a certain machine-generated paragraph. (Just a theory.)

The newsletter registration page is quite normal, until the last paragraph, which reads: [Read aloud for maximum effect]
--------------------

Data protection: Their email address is used only for the dispatch of our own information. We pass your address on not to third and dispatch also no advertisement of third. At the end of each newsletter a comfortable notice possibility exists. The Klicks on hyperlinks in emails and on web pages is made measured anonymous. The education of personal user profiles without your agreement is impossible thereby.

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

This weird text is followed by a standard Privacy Policy page.

Anyone want to point this out to the publishing house?

Translation tips –- Hebrew to English

2009-10-27T20:12:00.003+02:00

Here are a few typical goofy translations, of the sort I encounter repeatedly.

These may not be downright awful mistakes… they're just not the best way of phrasing things:

1. From the October 26, 2009 J. Post:

"Cameri Theater actor Limor Goldstein… has responded positively to a request from the theater's manager to step in …" etc.

"Responded positively" reeks of literal translation of the ubiquitous Hebrew expression נענה בחיוב, נענתה בחיוב [na'ana be'hiyuv, na'anta be'hiyuv]

The more natural way to say it in English would be: agreed, accepted, said yes, etc.

(Yes, this would require rewriting the sentence. Piece of cake, right?)

2. From the October 21, 2009 J. Post:

"The decision on whether to close the file on Foreign Minister A. L. or to invite him to a hearing that will determine whether or not the state will press charges against him…"

Just because he's a minister, does not mean he is invited and has the option of declining the invitation… This too is a common literal translation of the Hebrew להזמין [lehazmin] which indeed usually translates as "invite". Though had the original, Hebrew writer of this article used the verb לזמן [lezamen] rather than lehazmin, the English translator would have been less likely to err (I hope.) In this case, I believe the minister was summoned. This verb is very useful in other contexts too.

In Hebrew, you use this "inviting" verb in contexts wherein you'd use a totally different verb in English:

- The headmaster / head teacher called/ summoned the parents of the unruly kid to the school. The teacher calling the parents may be very polite, but I doubt you'd call it an invitation.

- The doctor's/dentist's receptionist called to schedule an appointment for your check-up

And so on.

3. Writers of Hebrew have a fondness for the word project. Not everything is a project. Sometimes program is more apt. E.g.: "Program Objective: Locate 20 students aged 12-16 who would participate in and benefit from the program." (A program run in certain schools offering extra tutoring to pupils who need it.)

4. The Hebrew word קוסמטיקה [cosmetica]. No, it does not necessarily mean cosmetics. In Hebrew usage, this word covers everything from creams and wonder-serums to lipstick and false eyelashes. In English, there's skincare products (= creams etc) and there's cosmetics (lipstick etc.) So be on your guard.

BTW -- there is a good Hebrew word for cosmetics in Hebrew -- תמרוקים [tamrukim]. But I see that its meaning is a bit fuzzy. According to my Heb>Eng dictionary, it means both make up and creams & unguents; but according to my Heb-Heb dictionary, it refers only to skincare, not to makeup. Go figure.

5. פרס [pras] – literally – prize. But in many instances it's an award, not a prize.

You shop, we drop - Grammar Court

2009-10-20T14:58:00.002+02:00

Walking or driving through London, I often see these large Tesco delivery trucks, carrying the slogan "You shop, we drop".
I can't help but feel that it appeals to every housewife (or other shopper) staggering home with heavy shopping bags. Never occurred to me that some may consider it ungrammatical.

I don't care what the Grammar Court decides -- I think it's brilliant. Along with so much other British copywriting. Well, actually, the Judge decided it's grammatical. So much the better!

- to be continued...

London – not what you thought

2009-10-12T20:58:00.004+02:00

Whenever I tell friends and colleagues that I'm going to London – which, I'm happy to say, has been happening fairly regularly during the past nearly 30 years of my life – people react with "Lucky you! Have a great time! Have fun!"

While I don't wish to complain, and I do often have fun, it's not of the type my friends have in mind. In their mind's eye, they see me shopping on Oxford Street , feeding the pigeons in Trafalgar Square , watching the mime artists in Covent Garden , spending my evenings in the West End catching up on the latest shows, dining out, downing pints in pubs, and possibly also visiting the Queen .

I'd like to set the record straight.

Though, with the exception of visiting the Queen, I have, over the years, done all of the above, this is not what my typical London visit consists of. See, London is a big city, and I stay on the south-east edge, in a small suburb called New Eltham that no one has ever heard of. For starters, it's "south of the river", which to North Londoners is tantamount to some obscure region of Africa. To be a wee bit more accurate, if you care to look at a map, it's on the border of Kent, or it used to be part of Kent. It's part of the borough of Greenwich, which I'm sure you heard of, that of Greenwich Mean Time fame. Sleepy little township with lots of little old ladies with neat white hairdos, the same square, pale grey or cream colored parkas, sensible shoes and plaid shopping bags. It's got the obligatory High Street with Marks & Spencer's, a Boots, a Superdrug if I feel the urge to be more economical, a Next for my fave socks, a WHSmith for bday cards (more about that later). It has the minimum required number of Chinese, Indian and Italian restaurants (say 3 each per n square miles, where n stands for – but let's not overcomplicate things); and it has at least one café that serves a decent latte.

So you see, I'm not really complaining. Also, the view from the upstairs spare bedroom window is adorable – the back yard with its lawn, rosebush, flower pots, squirrels scurrying around, etcetera; and beyond it the green green grass of Avery Hill Park. Charming. Soothing, Quiet (except when the Scouts are having a camping day).

At the risk of sounding like an estate agent, I'll add that it's within easy walking distance to the train station, and the neighbors are really nice. That is, I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt – I never hear them or see them. No loud music, no fighting or shouting, no TV station blaring in Russian, no car honking. Rather dead, in other words.

Mind you, staying here in New Eltham does not mean I'm in detention or house arrest. We – Hubby and I – have been known to wander off, be it to stately homes around the corner like Eltham Palace – very handy, having a stately home to gawk at and admire right around the corner --- or to get on a train and go off to, say, Loch Ness . (Okay, that was for Shira's bat mitzvah trip, but it still counts!). This time, for instance, we plan to go off to Cornwall. Visit Penzance , for example; muse on the days – if there ever were such days – when pirates were romantic and chivalrous and took pity on orphans*. Unlike today's uncouth Sumalis.

-- -- --

Now that I've gotten that straight, I can go back to other things I wanted to tell you about: Why I like flying over on BA; the movies I watched on the flight; the books I'm reading, and the books I intend to buy at Waterstone's, or some other useful shop.

-----------
* FREDERIC: Then, again, you make a point of never molesting an orphan!

SAMUEL: Of course: we are orphans ourselves, and know what it is.