The ITA - Israel Translators Association is holding a one-day seminar of lectures, workshops, food, fun and networking.
When? - Sunday, April 21, 2013, at 08:30-17:30 hrs.
Where? - The Adenauer Conference Center in Mishkenot Sha’ananim, Jerusalem.
Want more details? - Of course you do! Just click the link.
Do you have to be an ITA member to attend? - No, but it'll cost you a few extra shekels. I highly recommend that you put those shekels to good use by joining the ITA; this way, you'll pay the lower rate, as well as help bolster the organization and hopefully be encouraged to attend future events, too.
Wish I could attend, but am not well enough yet. (Why, what's wrong? Oh, I had some surgery a while back. So why am I not well yet? Because. C'est la vie. Don't nag. I'm doing the best I can.)
The thing that amuses me is that the ITA chose to refer to this event by its Hebrew name, "yom iyun"; probably because there is no exact equivalent in English. It's one of those annoying words that the Heb-to-Eng translator comes across quite often, rolls his/her eyes and emits a "Grrr"-kind of exasperated growl. Just a tiny example of what we translators are up against every single day. Yes, even when we're not officially working. Because our brains -- at least the language-section thereof -- keep at it, wherever we are, whatever we're doing.
So go ahead, sign up for the Yom Iyun, and send me your impressions. You can also pick up and send me a copy of whatever handouts are distributed, and email me your notes, or post them on your respective blogs and send me a link!
The Secret Life of Blog Posts
Once posted, your blog entries develop a life of their own, for better or for worse. Some wither and die, others flourish and keep attracting attention. It took me a while to realize I have at least some control over this.
Early in my blogging days, pleased
with my own creativity, I often attempted to give wise-cracking names to my
blog posts. I thought I was making them
sound intriguing, when in fact I was obscuring the issue at hand, and making it
needlessly difficult for potential readers to find stuff that I desperately
wanted them to read.
Looking back at my list of posts, I
myself can’t figure out what some of them are about, judging from the title
alone. Why be cryptic? Why be a smart-Alec? (What’s the feminine of ”smart
Alec”? Smart Alexa? Smarty Pants?)
Here are a few examples:
When will they ever learn?
[Learn what? What are you getting at?]
Some respect for the dead
[Er... what are you talking about?]
Yes, okay, after reading the posts
the titles do make sense. But that’s not good enough.
Looking back, I can see why certain
posts keep getting hits, by web surfers who have absolutely no interest in what
I have to say. It’s the blog title, of course. One such case is my late
sister’s story, which I uploaded as tribute to her memory. The poor girl died
29 years ago, and the number of people who still remember and love her is
dwindling. The story is titled 405 South. So yes, lots
of people looking for driving directions involving this route innocently click
the link when it comes up in their search results. I bet that, when they see
it’s a piece of nightmarish fiction by a dead girl rather than matter-of-fact,
helpful directions of how to get from X to Y, they grimace and move on. I bet
not one of them got distracted, took the digression, and actually read the story.
[On the other hand, an old friend of
my late sister’s, who’d lost touch and didn’t know what became of her, Googled
her name and had a nasty shock.]
Like most bloggers(?), I often go to
my Stats page to see who’s been reading what, which of my posts is popular,
etc. Do you want to know which is the Numero Uno big hit? From my first posts
in March 2008 to the present? Of all the subjects I’ve ever covered, some of
them pretty important to me and my readers, the winner is “Obliphica
oil: What's in a name?" ; a trivial rant about the name
obliphica, which I found objectionable. It garnered more hits by far than any
other post. I guess lots of people Googled the word, perhaps wanting to know
where they could get this fad oil at the best price. And they couldn’t care
less that I thought the name was silly.
Another post with a misleading name
is An Open Letter to the Grievance
Committee. Unsuspecting souls looking for info on a local grievance
committee to whom they could complain about some injustice, say, found a post
that had nothing to do with any actual grievance committee; it was a post
strictly relevant to freelance translators and editors who are put in an
uncomfortable situation by clients. An important post, in my opinion, to me and
my colleagues. But giving it an inappropriate
title was a mistake.
In recent months I have tried to
make the names of my blog posts less “clever” and more to-the-point, making
sure they contained a relevant, informative key word or phrase.
E.g.: Kindle, cataract surgery, tips for
lectures and presentations, Linked In, etc.
Puns are great fun, and if you can
make a pun and still get your message across loud and clear – great, go for it.
But if you want readers far and wide to find you because of what you have to
say – keep it simple.
In by Nina Rimon Davis
The amazing Arthur C. Clarke
No matter how good non-fiction is, when I'm done with one or two, I usually crave a dose of fiction. By which I generally don't mean a contemporary best-seller. So when I finished the superb, thought provoking Thinking, Fast And Slow / Daniel Kahneman, I reached for the sci-fi shelf. And this is what I jotted down, as I read the slim volume I picked up:
------
As it happens, half-way through Childhood's End, I came across the following newspaper article, which made me smile, because it described the up side of today's technological advances: No Flying Cars, but the Future is Bright, wrote Virginia Postrel. I find that a very comforting thought.
Arthur C. Clarke
Childhood’s End (first published: 1953)
Interesting plot and characters. Unforeseen plot
development.
As a reader mentioned on Amazon,
this is not a typical Arthur C. Clarke sci-fi novel, in the sense that it isn’t
based on hard scientific research. It’s more in the realm of fantasy-sci-fi. It
has a lyrical quality, it has supernatural beings, and it makes a philosophic
point that is at odds with the one usually espoused by Clarke. But all
that is beside the point I wanted to make:
The funny thing is – like with many other futuristic, sci-fi
novels – that sci-fi writers, no matter how brilliant, did not foresee or dream
of such things as the internet, ebooks, email, mobile phones that are in effect
handheld computers that can do tons of complicated stuff; text messages,
e-photos, and more. Humanity could be so advanced, technically/mechanically;
yet they still get their info in the form of paper, tons of it; they’re still
stuck with clunky fax machines, and any serious computers are huge and take up
entire rooms.
In terms of the effect of technology on humans and their
daily life, Clarke’s 1956 novel, The City and the Stars, tells a different
story. But, since I read it 10 years ago, in Feb 2002, I must confess I don’t
remember the details, and only have the brief note I wrote to myself at the
time:
Feb. 2002
Arthur C. Clarke -
The City and the Stars
Amazing SF, especially considering when it was written (1956). The
breadth of vision and the scientific insight and foresight are amazing. When it
comes to human nature – nu, we've read better. The predominance of the male
point of view, seeing the entire universe as a man's domain, with women only an
adjunct, is typical of its time (and much later times.) ------
As it happens, half-way through Childhood's End, I came across the following newspaper article, which made me smile, because it described the up side of today's technological advances: No Flying Cars, but the Future is Bright, wrote Virginia Postrel. I find that a very comforting thought.
Have you read either of the above Arthur C. Clarkes? Both? Any comments?
In by Nina Rimon Davis
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