Wordwidgets and the things translators do beyond the call of duty

There is a logical fallacy which I’ve noticed in my thinking. Namely, “people like us don’t do that kind of stupid thing”. I’ve engaged in it in many parts of my life: people in my family don’t do stupid things (wrong!), people in my language-group don’t do stupid things (I speak English. Wanna talk empires and oppression, anyone? English is not, in general, the language of saints and the morally superior...), and finally, the astounding error of thought which I had sort of left in the unarticulated notion “language professionals don’t do that kind of stupid thing”.

Page Plato, we’ve got a new philosophical realization here. Yes, indeedy, language professionals can and do incredibly stupid things. Sometimes to the point of being Darwin Award-worthy, but on a more frequent, daily basis, I’m talking about smaller things. Like the idiots who specifically and vociferously demand literal “word for word, do you understand?” translation of copywriting and then complain about its sounding horrible in the target language (an issue that came up not once but twice yesterday). Makes you want to shake the culprit and maybe dislodge the stupid ideas from their brain – copywriting cannot be translated literally. It just. Does. Not. Work. How come language professionals – project managers, for example – fail to know this?

But this morning’s grumble-grumble-grumble belies my big happy smile. A chronic condition has been cleared up, around here. To wit: some people have lice; some people have leprosy. For a very long time, we had contractors. Now we have a nice, new, functional bathroom, at twice the price and six times the estimated length of the project.

All phases of this project reminded me of translation projects. The bid, the way things got more complicated once they tore out the floor (gosh-golly, guyz, that’s pretty much the reason I like being a translator rather than a contractor. I’d hate to have to spend most of my time in places with no floor). But I wonder, how long would I stay in the market if I were charging double the original quote and taking six times as long to deliver? And why did I put up with it?

I’m trying to figure the answers out myself.

Meanwhile, other people are putting their time and experience to better use: Norah Bagarinka, Rwanda massacre survivor, did what we all do and went above and beyond the call of her duty as official translator for the movie God Sleeps in Rwanda, an Academy Award nominee for best documentary short. But she didn’t just translate –co-director Kimberlee Acquaro explained that her role grew far beyond her original brief to being a major part of the in-country production team. That keeps happening, of course. Translators are people who need to know a lot about a lot of things, and our talents are often recruited for all those various extras.

What seems to be a daily offering – the wordwidget du jour is a pen scanner with translation capabilities has made it to the market. You point the pen to the word, run it along it, side to side and presto, there’s your translation, right on the LED. This may be a bit harder when trying to read signs in foreign countries, and outright dangerous for translations where context is key like pharmaceutical inserts and such. But hey, nice widget and I wouldn’t mind getting one for Christmas. In fact, any pens are welcome - the half-life of a pen-purchase is numbered in days, here, so I'm giving the twenty-four new ones we bought this morning about a week and a half. Then I'll go raid you-know-who's office.

Over in the U.K., the Independent foreign fiction prize honors superior literary efforts that need the help of literary translators to make to the English press. To emphasize the fact that this help is a need, the prize money – £10,000 – is shared equally between writer and translator. In the running this year – mainly works from Eastern Europe. The prize will be awarded in May - I’ll be on the lookout for it and when I find out, I’ll share. Meanwhile, pick up the short list here - maybe your local library has ‘em?

Dismal times for the linguistically disadvantaged of New York: the medical situation is bad enough, but how come you’re using a waiter as your interpreter, docs? Read it and weep. As HikerDude commented the other day, our medical issues may be irritating, but at least we can get the information. Petition your local hospitals to use interpreters, and phone interpretation services. Really, do. Slamming against a language barrier should never kill anyone.

It’s back to the salt mines for me – work is piling up, as are administratrivialities. I’ll be back at the blog tomorrow with an essay on Islam, on Sunday with some other musings relating to – oh, I dunno – and on Monday with the news roundups: the world through, with, by, and for translators.