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

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:

1. Say no to yukky texts (See my previous posts, of December 2010 and July 2010.)
2. 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

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…

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?...