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* CYBERSPACE *
* A biweekly column on net culture appearing *
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* Copyright 1999 Karl Mamer *
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English rulez!
The argument has been made that English is the predominate
language on earth because it's a mongrel tongue. You don't have
to fake a knowledge of wines or know when to bow. If you can't
find the right word, borrow a term from French or Sanskrit or
just make one up. It's perfectly grenfedal. Your word might not
make it into the Oxford English Dictionary but when did Oxford
ever do anything for you other than make you feel stupid?
English gobbles up foreign terms with ease, though maybe silly
accents, umlauts and strange letters you find in the names of
Danish philosophers get spat out along the way. Other languages
don't have such an easy time adopting English words. In some
places, like France, the truncheon men of the Academie
Francaise will jail you and strip your family of citizenship if
you try to introduce a term like "McSuperTasty!" into the
sacred lexicon.
The threat of a wicked punishment conceived by an under-
employed bureaucrat has, however, not stopped a French/English
mell known as Franglais from springing up in parts of Europe
and Ottawa-Hull. While Franglais might not be the preferred
language of commerce, in shops and pubs and road-side traffic
disputes it's the language of necessity. L'International
Franglais Site de Web at www.camcol.demon.co.uk offers some
handy and humorous lessons. Franglais can be learned in mere
minutes as long as you follow one simple rule outlined at the
page: "Vous simplement parle what you knower in Francais, et do
tout else in Anglais."
The Japanese seem to have no legal or cultural prohibitions
against using English whenever or where ever they can. It's
probably a side effect of the fact the Japanese have more
alphabets than words for snow.
As the Japanese "Engrish" page at www.lumine.net/engrish/
illustrates, the Japanese love for the language goes beyond
using English to convey useful information about what a package
might contain or how a product might kill you if mishandled.
English terms are used simply as graphic devices on packaging.
For example, there seems to be no explanation why a day timer
has the phrase "have a smell of Panda droppings" on its cover
other than it's set in a nice font.
Maybe something was lost in the translation. There are some
cute sites that list amusing translation gaffs. Having worked
with a translator for most of this decade, I've come to
appreciate what a difficult task it is to translate not just
words, but preserve the meaning. One has to be not just
bilingual but bicultural. You could translate a phrase like "oh
baby, you're hot" as "hello small infant, your temperature is
high" or "hey lady, you're looking good".
Errors in translation have that "from the mouth of babes"
quality. They are amusing when they tell a lot more than
intended or valiantly achieve accuracy through tortured
structure. The Lost in the Translation site at
hearsay.simplenet.com/translation/ has a number of good ones. A
brochure for a car rental company in Tokyo advises how to deal
with pedestrians: "Trumpet him melodiously at first, but if he
still obstacles your passage tootle him with vigor."
More humorous translations can be found at
www.mcn.net/~wleman/humor.htm.
Even native English speakers aren't always decisive in the use
of terms One of my peeves is signs that use quotation marks
around words that don't seem to require quotes. Quotes on words
imply "almost but not quite". The Gallery Of "Misused"
Quotation Marks at www.juvalamu.com/qmarks/ has a large number
of examples.
The "exhibits" range from "disturbing" to "disheartening". A
grocery store sign assures customers that "safety" is important
to them. In a Valentine's Day Card a grandmother refers to her
grandchild as "Rebecca". Is the grandmother not sure of her
name? or is the so-called "Rebecca" in the witness protection
program?
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