Japanese break

I never thought I'd say this, but I need a Japanese break (instead of the usual French one) because I've been out of the translating and language scene for a bit, due to recent radio bounty. So even though I've been awake since before 2 AM and haven't yet slept, I'm going to go to Japanese class because I need serious Japanese practice and input.

So I guess sometimes Japanese is my friend, after all :D

The joke's on us

I was trying to find information about the origin of April Fool's Day (which is today), but there doesn't seem to be a clear answer. A few sites, even About, say that "The origins of April Fools' Day are obscure."

WHY?

There's certainly no shortage of historical information about April Fool's hoaxes, so why can't we have some reliable info about why today is April Fool's Day?

(Yeah, I know, I can go to the library, but I have to go get food and sleep soon, and I was hoping I could find the info online.)

Busy having fun

I was going to post something here yesterday, but I had to teach and then I hung out with John Banas. I went there around 6 pm, so I figured I'd be back in time to do other stuff, including translating and posting stuff here. But I didn't leave until after 1 am, and since he lives two counties away from me, I didn't get home until after 2 in the morning.

But at least we got to talk about writing. He likes to write thrillers, I like to write non-thrillers. Right now I think I have a good enough idea to not want to discuss the details, even with him. Because, as "they" (whoever "they" is) say, if you talk about it, sometimes you won't write about it.

Is it still popular?

Whenever I see advice about learning kanji, I think about the book Remembering the Kanji. When I was living in Japan, it seemed like everyone who wanted to learn how to read Japanese had that book. I bought it, too, but I didn't finish reading it. I wonder how many people nowadays have that book, or if it's as popular as it used to be. It seems like a book that people buy, but don't finish.

Shocking news

Well, even though radio opportunities are shrinking due to consolidation and syndication, I miraculously got a production gig with a locally produced show. Even though I'm in the third largest market in one of the wealthiest and largest nations on earth, locally produced shows are very rare. Seriously--do an online search for media companies, and you'll see that very few companies own the media, which means very few opportunities to work in it.

Which means that I've achieved the impossible.

(btw--because the gig isn't full time, I'll still be able to do language stuff, so it seems like a shockingly good situation all around)

Had to resort to Spanish

I've been reading stuff about Pancho Villa, and wanted to know more about Don Luis Terrazas, who was a very rich landowner in Mexico during Villa's time. The English info I found online seemed to talk about his wealthy and powerful life, but not his origins, and I really wanted to know why he was so rich. So I gave in, and did a search in Spanish and found something that will help get me started: Breve Historia de la Ganadería en Chihuahua.

I didn't want to read stuff in Spanish because I'm lazy and don't know all the words, which means I'll have to look them up, but it couldn't be avoided because English just wasn't enough. (I could get an English book, but I'm already reading other books and don't want to add a huge history to my list.)

Sort of related: what's great about the New York Times is that they post old articles that you can read for free: I found one about Luis Terrazas II's release from Pancho Villa's torturous imprisonment and escape to the US. I was going to post the article as a pdf here, but it's copyrighted, and I don't want to get in trouble with them :D

What's the point

I was planning on working on the novel tonight after Japanese class, but I started feeling quite sick, and am not even well enough to do a decent blog post right now. But I thought, "Who cares if you can't write--that novel is never going to get published! Why waste your time?"

When I write, I know I'm doing the right thing. But when I'm not writing, I wonder what's the point. The point is to create something, but it might never see the light of day.

[whining is over]

The river really is green

Every year in honor of Saint Patrick's Day, the city dyes the Chicago River green--seriously. Here's a cute report about it by a TV pro who is now doing radio (lucky guy who's also really nice).

He's British!

I've never watched an entire episode of House, but I have caught parts of it, and I thought the main character was American. But he's British! In fact, I already knew who he was (Hugh Laurie), but I didn't make the connection: he was on the British show Jeeves and Wooster, which is actually too annoying to watch too often.

Here's a video of Hugh Laurie auditioning for House--you can sort of detect a slight British accent in the beginning, but when he's in character, he sounds like an American, and believe me, I'm American, so I should know what an American accent should sound like. Also, here and in the show, he behaves like an American. So it's not just the accent, but his manner. Bottom line: he's convincing!

Another product that needs a good translator

It's pretty obvious that there's a translation problem. (source)

I think I saw a VNR

I'm almost done with Fighting for Air, and it is really good. If you work in the media, if you want to work in the media, or if you care about the media, I highly recommend this book.

One of the things I've learned about is VNR's, which are video news releases. Basically, they are created by PR agencies, businesses, governments, and anyone else who wants their story to be covered by TV news organizations. They're sent to media companies and are either broadcast in their entirety as a "news" story, or they are edited down, or interspersed with a local reporter's voice and even image, as if they're "interviewing" someone from the story. The book has a lot more to say about VNR's, and so do plenty of websites.

I think I saw a VNR tonight: I was watching the news and saw a health story with dramatic music that seemed to have a slick production quality, and even though the local health reporter's voice was in the story, it still seemed too smooth, especially because they were saying that a particular pharmaceutical drug was helpful for the ailment.

I emailed the news station to ask them if that story was a VNR, or if it was researched and produced by the local reporter. I'll see if they respond :D

gusset from machi

The more Japanese I read and translate, the less katakana I seem to know. I think it's also because more katakana words have entered the language because of globalization.

I was recently confounded by the word マチ (machi). It didn't originate from English, because it was describing the bottom of a bag. So I did a search, and found out that it means gusset, which is "a usually diamond-shaped or triangular insert in a seam...to provide expansion or reinforcement."

I also found some websites of companies that sell bags with gussets. What's lame is that I'd never heard of a "gusset" before. It sounded like an old word, and I was right about that, since it comes from Middle English (16th century). I'd also never heard anyone use the word "gusset", and I'm sure if I were to ask people if they knew what it was, I'd get different responses.

Now that I know the meaning, I still don't know what language "machi" comes from.

Update: commenter Paul said that "machi" isn't a foreign word (マチ), but is the reading (まち) for 襠! My bad :(

Good play

I just saw A Steady Rain, which is going to be in Chicago until late April. It's not the most uplifting story in the world, but it's good, and very Chicago. If you're around the area, I highly recommend it.

The two actors (there are only two) are excellent, and I was lucky to meet them after the show. They are so intense on stage, I thought they'd be almost devoid of personality off the stage (since some actors are good at disappearing into their characters to "escape" the blandness and insecurity of their own) or at least be too wiped out and drained to speak to anyone. But they were actually cool and friendly, and they told me to tell my friends about it.

If I was involved with a radio show, I'd try to get them on the air, but since I have no such outlet, I might as well mention the play here.

It's at the Royal George theater, which is easy to get to and is a really nice space. I want to go there again.

Fritalian (or Fretalian?)

Noodle is complicated

Often in Japanese, we see the word for "noodle" in hiragana: めん (men). But sometimes it appears in its kanji form: 麺

For such a simple word and concept, that kanji is certainly complicated. Though the reading is easy to remember, since the right-hand side has a character that is pronounced "men". So at least we can relax about that.

Over 100k

I am posting this for the record (because I work at least marginally in the "media" and want to publish one century): I've gotten well over 100,000 unique visitors here. I will probably reach the 110,000 mark soon. And the visitors have come from all over the world.

Thanks for visiting!

Plenty of weirdly translated signs

Read this doc on Scribd: Japanese and Chinese signs

The Multilingual Teen sent me this slideshow of funny English in Asia, which seems to contain images that mostly come from the Engrish site. I hope they don't make me take this down :(

This is soap?

I had to translate the katakana word シャボン (shabon) from Japanese into English, but I couldn't figure out what it meant. Usually I can figure katakana words out because they usually come from English, but this was baffling, so I went to my beloved Popjisyo (though the online katakana dictionary has it too). It means "soap" and is derived from the Portuguese word "sabão."

Ok, I have some questions: why did they decide to use the Portuguese word for soap instead of the English word, which is ソープ (soupu) in katakana? And why don't they just use the Japanese word for soap 石鹸 (sekken)? And by the way, how does シャボン (shabon) sound like sabão? They sound quite different from each other.

Maybe they wanted to be fancy: by choosing the Portuguese word, they were being a little more "exotic" and "special" since English is often used. As for the katakana representation of "sabao", maybe they were trying to capture the "oa" sound at the end of Portuguese words that sound like "n" to some of us lame Portuguese speakers.

I knew it!

After I saw "La Vie En Rose," I said that "I would be very surprised if that film and/or actress did not win an Academy Award."

Well, the movie won some awards, and Marion Cotillard won best actress! Even though the media is saying that it's a "surprise", it isn't to me--she was incredible in that movie!

Time to read

Now that my schedule is normal again, I actually have time to read books. During the past few months I read a lot of stuff online because I was spending a lot of time working online, but I couldn't get a big enough chunk of time to seek out books and read them.

So now I'm reading two books about the media: Bernard Goldberg's Arrogance and Fighting for Air by Eric Klinenberg.

I read Goldberg's first book Bias in one night--it was that good and well-written. I'd love to meet that guy one day and hear what he has to say.

I actually got to meet Klinenberg briefly, and all I kept thinking was, "dang, this guy is blessed." He's an associate professor at NYU, but I didn't know that--all I heard him say was how the school was paying for part of his housing, which is why he's able to live in Manhattan with a wife and kid (difficult to do, especially because it's an extremely expensive city).

Then I asked him a seemingly stupid question: was he lecturer, adjunct, or what, and when he told me "professor" I was shocked because I rarely meet actual professors (especially young ones) or people who even have a chance at becoming one, even though they've managed to get a PhD. Sure, there are professors at universities, but in many cases when professors have retired, they've replaced them with adjuncts because they're cheaper.

Klinenberg has also published books that both the media and public like, ie, he doesn't just write scholarly, narrow books. Another way he's blessed. And he's been published in various magazines.

So far, his book is good, and I am probably going to finish it pretty quickly because I have the time and the interest to get through it. But I doubt I'll get the chance to meet him again, so I guess I'll just have to email him my thoughts :D

I feel high

I translated some Japanese today, did errands, walked around downtown with a friend, and ate Chicago deep-dish pizza, but I still have to create a quiz for tomorrow's ESL class. So I decided to relax to some good music, and though I usually go to Inceptdate to do that, they were offering jazz, which to me isn't relaxing. So I've been listening to Groovera, which is so chill, it's almost hard to get the energy to focus on the quiz.

Lithuanian flag

A friend of mine is moving to Korea, so I invited some people over for a small party, where I included some Korean snacks (ie, pineapple cookies, shrimp chips, green tea biscuit-type of small cookies, pear and mandarin juices). There were mostly Americans at the party, but a couple of the people who came were from Lithuania, and they gave me Lithuanian chocolates with a small Lithuanian flag. I never knew what their flag looked like, which is why I'm posting it here. What's great about the U.S. is you can mix different countries' stuff under one roof, and it can still make sense.

Mother lode

When I saw the phrase mother lode, I realized that I hadn't seen it before. For some reason, I thought "lode" would be "load", that it was one word rather than two, and that the meaning implied "huge". Instead, it means "the principal vein or lode of a region" and "a principal source or supply."

Actually, "lode" is an odd word. It's cute, but it's also has a clumsiness about it. Like "lobe".

Wherever you go, there you are

I was thinking about how the phrase "Wherever you go, there you are" is true. But it was hard to find the source of that quote. Actually, if I were to do the research in a library, I would probably find the answer, but I don't have such time. But I found an article that cites The Imitation of Christ as the source, written by Thomas a Kempis.

It would require further research to see if this really is the source of the quote. It's just so common now, it's hard to tell where it came from.

Writing again

I used to do "whoa is me" posts here about how difficult fiction writing was, and then I wrote a couple of novels (unpublished of course, which made me feel even worse). After I finished the second one last February, which I still feel is a great feat, I stopped writing fiction because I was focusing on whatever radio stuff I could string together.

Well I'm finishing up a very intense radio-producing (assistant) gig for the number one show at the number one station in Chicago, and I'm ready to write again. I guess my mind for the past several months has been wrapped around translating, teaching, and surviving in the dwindling radio biz (which is borderline dead-end because of syndication and consolidation), and now my mind is asking me, "Where have you been? You've got a good story to write!" So I've been re-reading a book I read a while ago about plot, and I do, indeed, have a good idea, which is a revision of what I finished last year.

So the bottom line is I'm back, and once I can resume normal waking hours (right now I wake up around 2 AM), I'm going to write even more.

Good documentary

I usually don't watch VH1, but I ended up watching Air Guitar Nation because a couple of months ago I had to edit an interview with an air guitar champ, and I wanted to find out what that scene was like. I highly recommend this documentary--it's interesting and entertaining and is stylish in terms of the graphics and how they shot and edited it. By the end, I cared about how well these people were going to do. It doesn't mock them but just follows what they're doing and shows the drama of their pursuits.

Is this English?

This is what would happen if Star Trek was in Scotland. Presumably, they speak English there, and I speak English too, but I can't understand much of what they're saying. I guess what they're speaking would be called Scottish.

MMORPG

I was reading some stuff at a message board, and someone posted the acronym MMORPG. I found out that it means massive[ly] multiplayer online role playing game.

Wikipedia says it's "massively," but a popular MMORPG site and other sites say it's "massive". I don't know what was used first: "massive" or "massively", and I don't know what's "correct." But it's the closest we've come to a holodeck.

What a weirdly negative comment

I came upon this quote:

Emilio Azcarraga, the billionaire head of Mexico's Televisa: "Mexico is a country of a modest, very f----d class, which will never stop being f----d. Television has the obligation to bring diversion to these people and remove them from their sad reality and difficult future."

I wanted to see the Spanish source of that quote, and found both the exact quote and the larger context. According to what I read (and assuming my lame Spanish is good enough to understand), he said it at a press conference in 1993.

Here's the Spanish version (from an academic speech that referred to what he said):

México es un país de una clase modesta jodida, que no va a salir de jodida. Para la televisión es una dura obligación llevar la diversión a esa gente y sacarla de su triste realidad y de su futuro difícil...

And here's the larger context (with help from an essay that refers to the quote):

Estamos en el negocio del entretenimiento, de la información, y podemos educar, pero fundamentalmente entretener… México es un país de una clase modesta jodida, que no va a salir de jodida. Para la televisión es una dura obligación llevar la diversión a esa gente y sacarla de su triste realidad y de su futuro difícil...los ricos pueden hacer muchas cosas que los diviertan, pero la clase modesta, que es una clase fabulosa y digna, no tiene ninguna otra manera de acceder a una distracción más que a la televisión

There's a lot to say about such thoughts, but basically, it seems more than cynical: it seems hopeless and mercenary in a way, because he knows that he's creating television shows to get people out of their misery while wanting to make a ton of money from them. But then later, he acts like he respects those people by saying they're "fabulosa y digna". It's like he's backtracking because he just put them down by saying they're trapped in misery, but he probably didn't want them to be angry with him, so he ended up complimenting them.

Fake and messed up, for sure.

Repetition works

A while ago when I was teaching ESL, a coworker said that he likes to do round-robin reading, which is having each student read a part of a text, and then when all of it has been read, the students go around and read it again. He said that he noticed the students' reading became better, but I never did that activity in class because I thought the students wouldn't enjoy it. But I was wrong.

Recently in Japanese class, we've been doing round-robin reading. At first I wondered what the purpose was, and if the teacher knew what she was doing. But last night the penny dropped: we were on our third reading of a short essay, and I really felt a lot more comfortable with the text. And that's important, because seeing a bunch of kanji and vocabulary that I don't understand can be intimidating, and during the first read, I focus more on getting through the individual words rather than trying to understand the entire text. But by the end, I feel like I have a better grasp of what is going on.

So I'm going to use that activity in my ESL class, for sure.

The baby sun

This is going to sound weird, but I sometimes like to watch Teletubbies. I don't have kids, so I don't "have" to have it on, but there's something relaxing about it.

I especially like the Baby Sun. I don't know what the proper name of it is, but there's a baby in a sun, and when the Teletubbies come out of their dwelling or whatever it is, and when they say goodbye, the Baby Sun watches over them, and slowly sets at the end of the show. The Baby Sun also laughs sometimes during the show. The Baby Sun knows and sees All.

I have some Important Questions about the Baby Sun: what does it represent? Is it controlling the Teletubbies? Is it giving them energy? Is the Baby Sun their leader? Does the Baby Sun run their universe? Does everything revolve around the Baby Sun?

Watch the show sometime and you, too, will wonder what role the Baby Sun plays, and if it's the Ultimate Power in that world.

Online katakana dictionary!

I have a katakana dictionary in book form, but I couldn't find a word in it, so I looked online to do the usual "what does this word mean in context" thing, and came upon an online katakana dictionary created by a Japanese guy named Yamada Yosuke (or, in the English version of the name, Yosuke Yamada, since Yamada is his last name). At least that was the name I saw after the Japanese word for "publisher".

What is really great is that he gives you the katakana word, the English meaning, then an example in Japanese! I hope he never takes this site down!

still here!

I guess it's been so extremely freezing in Chicago (ie, 4 degrees Fahrenheit, which is -16 Celsius) and my schedule has been full with radio stuff, translating, and teaching, that I forgot to do a post within the past few days, even though I have plenty of stuff to write about.

Such as a nifty word that I see often but forget the meaning of: quixotic. I like the way it looks and how it sounds, and the meaning is hopeful, in a quirky, crazy way: "foolishly impractical especially in the pursuit of ideals; especially marked by rash lofty romantic ideas or extravagantly chivalrous action"

The connotation isn't positive, but it can sometimes be refreshing in certain contexts.

Davy Crockett's autobiography

I was looking for information on a small Tennessee town, and saw that Davy Crockett lived around there. So I did a search, and found his autobiography, A Narrative of the Life of David Crockett, of the State of Tennessee. which you can read for free!

I don't have time now to read the whole thing, but I might attempt it, even though it's written in sort of annoying, stilted, cumbersome 19th century English with sentence structures that we don't use today.

Another thing: why did everyone back then use periods in titles? Note that I remained true to his book's title by including the period after "Tennessee." Another period occurs after that below the main title: "Written by himself."

Nowadays, book titles, even subtitles, don't use periods. I wonder when people stopped doing that.

Have you?

Here's something that Americans never say: "Have you any plans?" It's a British expression, which seems to be derived from German, since German often begins with, "Haben Sie..."

It's too bad Americans don't say, "Have you..." because it would be easier to teach that than "Do you have..." For some reason, the word "do" at the beginning of a question seems to confuse people who are learning English. I think it's because it's too complicated. "Have you" is easier.

Whenever I hear Brits say "Have you..." it seems so formal, but that's because "Have" sounds more formal than "Do".

Flammable or inflammable?

Sometimes I have to translate a word that means "flammable" from another language, but when I look in a dictionary, the word can also be "inflammable." What's the difference? None!

We'd assume that the prefix "in" makes it a negative, as in "incorrect" or "incoherent", but it doesn't. According to The Word Detective:

In the beginning, there was "inflammable," a perfectly nice English word based on the Latin "inflammare," meaning "to kindle," from "in" (in) plus "flamma" (flame). "Inflammable" became standard English in the 16th century. So far, so good.

Comes the 19th century, and some well-meaning soul dreamt up the word "flammable," basing it on a slightly different Latin word, "flammare," meaning "to set on fire." There was nothing terribly wrong with "flammable," but it never really caught on. After all, we already had "inflammable," so "flammable" pretty much died out in the 1800's.

After World War Two, safety officials on both sides of the Atlantic decided that folks were too likely to see "inflammable" and decide that the word meant "fireproof," so various agencies set about encouraging the revival of "flammable" as a substitute.

I think that was a good decision because few people know Latin concepts (not even moi). It's not like they say, "Oh, that's based on the Latin word "inflammare!" They just want a quick understanding, no extra analysis.

Deluded people

Millions of people watch "American Idol," but honestly, I've never watched it for more than a few minutes. But I had to watch it tonight to look for some good audio for the radio show I'm helping out with, and I must say that in spite of the show being on for several seasons, there still seem to be a lot of people who are totally deluded.

I think it's because people want fame and to escape their boring lives so badly, they convince themselves that they are great, almost as a kind of associated greatness that results when they latch on to celebrities, living vicariously through them.

I can't believe these people think they are talented. They really need to dwell within reality and work on what they really *are* good at.

County of Orange

Every time I see this image of the Orange County sign, I think it's so cute. "County of Orange" sounds so formal and even French-like, because French uses "de" between a noun and adjective or to indicate possession or when describing things. "County of Orange" also sounds important, because let's face it: a county named after a fruit doesn't command respect.

I need mnemonics

I was at Japanese class tonight, and saw a kanji that I should have known. So I used a mnemonic to remember it, and when I saw it again, I remembered what the reading was.

When I first studied Japanese, I always used mnemonics because that was the only way I was going to make sense of that very different language. But as I learned more kanji, I thought there wasn't a "need" to use mnemonics anymore. I guess I figured I could manage to memorize them without such a "crutch", but mnemonics really are helpful. I knew that, but I thought I was stronger than that. Well, there's nothing weak or wimpy about mnemonics, so I'm going to resume using them. They're not just for beginners.

Tarmac

I've been helping someone with English and American culture (shameless plug), and we read an article about a plane accident, which had the word "tarmac". If you think about it, it's sort of a weird word to use for a place where airplanes sit before they get on the runway to take off. What's puzzling is the source of it, and that it's a trademark. Usually I don't think of words coming from trademarks, but according to The Word Detective , it's:

short for "tar macadam." John McAdam (1756-1836) invented the "macadam" type of road pavement made of crushed stone, which resisted the rutting formerly plaguing highways in England. "Macadamizing" was later further improved by the addition of tar as a binder, resulting in the "Tarmac" process still widely used today.

Who would've known a commercial application would become a common, though odd-sounding, word.

Streaming rice

I was at a tiny Thai restaurant today, which would probably be characterized as a "hole in the wall," and on the grease-stained paper menus I saw the word "streamed rice" instead of "steamed rice". I guess their rice is online as well :D

Star Trek Rhapsody

This is funny, though I'm not a fan of the original Star Trek series. It's based on Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody.

Jive translator!

This is totally weird and funny: Gizoogle, which translates webpages and text to jive! You can paste in a URL to transform it to jive, or you can paste in text to "tranzilate" it.

I tried it with my homepage, which made the quotes look funny :D

Another year!

I can't believe we're almost into 2008! This past year started out sort of lame, but ended up great, and I think 2008 will be even better. I'm going to a party, then I have to work throughout the night, but it's the kind of work that is going to be really fun. I never would've thought that I'd be helping out with a radio show on New Year's Eve, especially because most overnight shows in the U.S. are never live, and actually, most radio in the U.S. isn't even produced locally.

One of the first tasks of the new year is to translate a bunch of Japanese, so my new year will still be language-related :D

French break

I just had a very packed week, and I still have translating to do. If I had a bunch of Japanese, I'd be worried about the condition of my brain, but I have some French to do, and even though it's not a cake walk, at least it's not as mind-shattering as Japanese. So I consider it a kind of break before I resume the Japanese translating shortly thereafter.

Time for bed

I've been on the go since 3:30 this morning, and I just got home. I think this is one of the longest, most productive days I've had in a while, possibly ever :D

It's a Wonderful Life online!

This is great news: according to Mad Minerva, one of my favorite movies has been posted online: It's a Wonderful Life. You can watch it for free in its entirety! It even has subtitles, in case English isn't your native language and you want to understand everything.

It's been a "tradition" during the holidays to watch it on television, and I've seen it many times. Now I don't have to wait for it to be broadcast, and there are no commercials.

Happy Hello Kitty Christmas!

The brainy and seemingly high-energy Mad Minerva posted this picture, which is one of many in her Hello Kitty Monstrosity collection (which isn't grouped or categorized, as far as I can tell).

Great site!

Here's a really great website that Language Hat, aka The Great One, mentioned at his blog: Digital Dialects, which has "interactive activities for learning languages and links to study resources" for over 50 languages! You can spend many hours having lots of fun building up your language skills! This is very exciting for language lovers, which is why I'm using exclamation points!

Chicagopedia

The Chicago Sun-Times is such a cool paper. Actually, their print edition isn't that exciting, but their website is easy to navigate and is informative. They also have some great columnists over there and investigate interesting issues.

A language-oriented project they've been posting this year is the Chicagopedia, which is a list of Chicago-related words.

I should be helping out with that column, at least by answering contributors' emails and helping compile the list. I wish I had some contacts over there, or would get "discovered" since I *am* a Chicago-dwelling language gal :D

Grandma is dead

When I was a teenager, the song Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer became very popular, and I guess it still is. What's weird is that it's become a holiday "classic" and people get all nostalgic and dewy-eyed about it. Other people consider it one of their favorite Christmas songs, but it's a cynical, even dark song. Grandma just doesn't get run over by a reindeer, she gets killed by one.

Here are some clues from the lyrics (the lyrics are in quotes, my comments are in parentheses):

"When they found her Christmas mornin"

(She'd been lying there overnight because she was hit by a reindeer Christmas Eve. Who could survive a cold, snowy, winter night, especially an older person?)

"It's not Christmas without Grandma"

("Without Grandma" means she's not there, ie, she's dead.)

"All the family's dressed in black"

(The family is wearing black because they are in mourning, because she died.)

"And a blue and silver candle
That would just have matched the hair in Grandma's wig"

(Note the tense: "would just have", which means she's not there, because she's dead.)

When the song first came out, we all knew it was twisted and even mocked Christmas. Grandma was *killed* by reindeer! But you wouldn't know that if you watch the cartoon. They've made the song into a heart-warming story about Grandma merely getting knocked down by reindeer.

Sorry, but Grandma died. I wonder if people really know that. A cynical song wrapped up in cheery music.

What translating means

I think people don't know the difference between translating and interpreting. When I tell people I've translated languages that I don't speak well, or barely at all, they become puzzled. "How can you translate something that you don't speak?" They're either asking that because they think I mean "interpreting," or they automatically assume that I can speak various languages. So they'll tell other people that I speak X amount of languages, when I really don't. Honestly!

It's weird, because I never say what I've done to boast, but people will give more value to my language skills so that it forces me to deny such talents. Then it sounds like I'm full of false humility, but I'm not. I really can't speak all those languages! I just love to study and translate them!

Again?!

What is up with China and the "f" word? Someone sent me this picture with the same Chinese character that was also translated into the "f" word in the swearing menu. At first I thought it was a photoshop job or a joke, but then I looked at the Chinese character in the swearing menu and this photo, and saw that it was the same. Either there are some really dumb people translating that character, or this is a sick joke.

AITPL posted

A while ago, I submitted an essay to Air in the Paragraph Line, and that issue has been posted. So now you can read about a bunch of us whining about work. Mine is about experiencing "the last straw", when I decided to quit pursuing a teaching career. Actually, since I wrote that essay, I found a good teaching situation at a city college with very nice students, a supportive administration, and nice coworkers. So I haven't totally quit teaching as I wanted to some years ago after working for a bunch of liars.

Weird English from Korea

Someone from Korea gave me a Korean snack cake that resembles the kind I tried in Japan. I don't read Korean, so I have no idea what the name is, though it's made by Haitai. Well, Haitai has to get a proofreader, because their English is quite oddly humorous:

Chocolate Coating Cake
You know that sweet things make smile.
We love to see you smile with your people.
So just taste this cake.

Ok, I will!

Sometimes Japanese is relaxing

Japanese is very hard to translate because it requires maximum brain energy to convert such different expressions into natural English, but lately, it's been relaxing. I think it's because I've been spending many hours working and doing intellectual-type of work, and when I translate Japanese, it's a break from all that. It's still intellectual, but it requires different mental efforts. Mental efforts. Now that sounds like Japanese-English (Japlish). Which means I need to take a break from Japanese as well.

the other Toronto

I know there's a Toronto in Canada, but I didn't know there was one in the U.S. It's in Kansas, and it's totally different from the Canadian one: in the year 2000, the population was only 312, and they expected it to go down to 285 by 2006!

Jolly

I was just watching the British version of "Antiques Roadshow," and one of the appraisers said "jolly". I don't think I've ever heard an American say "jolly" unless they're talking about Santa, and in that case, they're using the word to describe his personality, as in, "Santa is very jolly."

But it seems like the British use "jolly" to mean "very", as in, "jolly good," a phrase that is probably used often over there. It's actually a phrase that non-Brits use to portray Brits, as if it's representative of how they speak.

Monty Python in German

Bidun

I checked out inakayabanjin (who rarely posts) and learned about bidun, which comes from "Bidun jinsiya (or bidoon jinsiya)...an Arabic term meaning 'without nationality'."

over-using "the"

There are, of course, languages that don't use the word "the" or any articles, so sometimes I see over-compensation for that lack. For instance, there used to be a sign at a Japanese bookstore that said, "Please don't bring the cart into the store." They misused "the" by putting it in front of "cart," as if the sign is looking at your particular cart and pointing at it, telling you not to bring your specific cart into their store. I was there yesterday and saw that they replaced the sign with something more simple, such as "no carts!" below very flowery, polite Japanese requesting that no honorable carts be allowed inside.

So I guess they're like other folks I've seen, over-using "the" to make up for the lack of articles in their own language, as if they're trying to catch up.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Traysh

I was on a plane, and after we ate our snacks, one of the flight attendants told us that they were going around to pick up our "traysh." Seriously. It was like she added a "sh" to the word "tray". I'd never heard anyone pronounce "trash" that way before. I even heard someone near me imitate her accent, and I wouldn't be surprised if other people noticed it as well. I wonder if it's common in certain parts of the U.S. (such as the South?) to pronounce "trash" like "traysh."

Often said

Here's a line that I often hear on TV: "Excuse the mess--I wasn't expecting company."

I just saw that on the still-lame Stargate Atlantis. Dr. Beckett went to Dr. Weir's apartment, and when he looked at her coffee table with a few dirty dishes on it, she said, "Excuse the mess--I wasn't expecting company." Which made me think that a lot of stories contain such a line.

How many times have we heard that line in movies and TV? I did a search for that phrase, and didn't find much. That would be a funny project--to see a list of how many, and which, movies and TV shows have included that line. I'm sure eventually some obsessive person will create it.

Melk

Okay, the word for the calcium-filled, white liquid that is produced by cows that we, especially in the Midwest, like to drink is "milk." But some people pronouce it "melk."

I don't know why they do that, and even though I've heard it quite often, I'm tempted to say that it's the "wrong" way to pronounce it and it sounds "funny", but enough people say it that way that I really shouldn't say anything about it. Except to just mention that "variation" and let the world know that I say "milk".

The cake picture

There's a picture of a cake going around the Internet with the words "under neat" to represent "underneath." What happened was that a person in Little Rock, Arkansas ordered a cake from Wal-Mart, and he told the Wal-Mart employee to write something "underneath" something else. But the employee misunderstood what he said, and wrote his words not just literally, but spelled incorrectly.

I discovered that the source of the picture and the story is an email that was written to snopes.com (scroll down to see the picture and the email). I can't post anything from there because they have a strict copyright rule (I even asked for permission to reproduce the story but they said no). But I just wanted to clear up any online misunderstandings, because there are a lot of people out there who don't know that the origin of the story is Snopes.

I can't wait until Monday

Monday is going to be the start of something really great: I got an Associate Producer internship with the number one producer of the number one show at the number one station. What more can I say other than I am very happy and cannot wait!

Can't act

Not that this is life-changing or is going to alter world events, but I've been watching the "special" episode of Without a Trace (one of my favorite shows) that also features characters from CSI (I don't know which one--they take place in a few cities), and it seems quite obvious that the CSI folks can't act. Either that, or they've been directed in their show to appear stiff and shallow. I guess that's why I haven't been attracted to CSI--the characters seem fake and posey, and even the lighting is over-dramatic.

I wonder if other people watching the episode agree and see the vast difference between the casts.

good American culture book

A few years ago, I created an American Culture class and used different sources, including the book American Ways, which I've recently started using again to tutor someone. The author has a lot of experience working with non-Americans and writes clearly about different aspects of our behavior and culture. When I first read it, I didn't find myself thinking, "this isn't true" or getting annoyed with his descriptions because he seems to give information that isn't biased. If he does make generalizations, he qualifies what he's saying. Of course, I can see people, such as the whiners who I've met in education, voicing complaints that he doesn't talk about *all* segments of society, but he admits to that. Which is why the book is informative and fair.

Swedish Meguro

Sometimes I have to write Japanese addresses in English, and the prefectures aren't hard to figure out because such lists are everywhere. But the more detailed the addresses get, the more difficult it becomes to get correct readings of the words because the combination of kanji can lead to numerous readings. Even Japanese people don't always know the readings when they hear an address--they spend time on the phone or in conversations explaining which kanji represent which sounds to describe where they live or want to send a package.

So when I had to find out about sections of the Meguro area of Tokyo, I did a search online. Wikipedia does a great job of breaking down the sounds of various districts, so I looked for such an entry in a google search, and interestingly, I came upon the Swedish Wikipedia. It had what I was looking for--a list of areas of Meguro, and the task was made even more enjoyable because it was cool to see Swedish surrounding what I needed in Japanese.

Para para

I was just chatting with an online pal, and he said "para para" when he was giving me some advice about a situation. It is a Hebrew expression, and I got the following definition from an online Hebrew slang guide:

Literal translation: Cow, cow

Meaning: Doing one thing at a time, step by step

Example: "We've got a lot of things to deal with here so let's just work through it para para".

He also said that "para para" comes from a folk tale, but I don't know what it is. Maybe after he finds out from his Israeli friend, I'll do a follow-up post.

Goo

Here's a little victory I had today, which may seem insignificant to people who don't have to battle kanji or other difficult Japanese stuff: I was able to find out the meaning of a word by reading it in context--in Japanese. I feel like a grown-up.

In trying to find out the meaning of the word, which didn't exist in my large kanji dictionary, my even larger Japanese-English dictionary, or my beloved Popjisyo, I discovered Goo. It has lots of stuff, including a Japanese (kokugo) dictionary, English-Japanese dictionary, Japanese-English dictionary, and searches in Japanese Wikipedia.

I haven't tested out a lot of words there, but the name is totally cute.

Blurry Bono

Someone just posted a comment on a post I did about seeing Bono more than two years ago, wondering where the pictures are that I said I took. In the original post, I said that I took some really lame pictures because there were a lot of people around me, some of whom where pushing me because I was towards the front of the pack. I was also quite nervous because I'd waited there for a while with a few other folks to see if he'd emerge from his hotel, and he did, and I was using a brand new camera.

So above is another lame picture I took--I call it Blurry Bono because he looks like an Impressionist painting. He was giving an autograph to a super fan in front of me, and lots of people were pushing from behind. So I was all flustered. Sorry to all the fans out there who are going to see this :)

One of the things that's annoying about Japanese

Japanese is enjoyable to study, but there are some things that are annoying about it, especially for a Westerner like me.

If I have a question about French, I can type in the word or phrase that I'm looking for in a Google search, and can come upon online discussions or dictionaries or whatever pretty easily--someone somewhere knows what the words are in English. Or I can read French text that provides context for what I'm looking for.

But with Japanese, it's not very easy to find discussions online or use dictionaries quickly, because if you're reading Japanese on paper, you can't just quickly type in the word or phrase on the computer to do a search. You have to go through a lot of steps to find out what the heck anything means. First you have to change your computer's settings to Japanese, then type in the reading using the English keyboard which then pops up a box with a bunch of kanji in it. Then you have to look through the kanji to choose what you need, then you can paste it in the Google search box or use one of the online text readers such as Popjisyo. And there aren't a lot of Westerners discussing meanings of Japanese online--perhaps they represent a fraction of the number of French-speaking/reading folks.

It obviously takes a while, so it's easier to use a book. Unlike French, which you can research more conveniently online.

Writing contest

There's a writing contest in memory of my Metrofiction pal John Deaver, who passed away last year. Here's some of the info from an article that came out last week:

Since Steel Beam is once again producing "A Christmas Story," the board of directors wishes to honor the memory of John Deaver by creating a writing contest in his name: The John Deaver "A Christmas Story" Short Story/Memoir Contest.

Organizers are looking for your best literary short stories or memoirs about the winter holidays (Christmas, Kwanza, Hannukah, etc.) Winners will receive a cash honorarium, publication in a booklet printed by Steel Beam Theatre, five copies of the booklet, two complimentary tickets to "A Christmas Story" and the chance to read their story during a Steel Beam Theatre performance Nov. 23 to Dec. 23.

All stories should be no longer than the maximum length set forth below, and must be received by Nov. 1. Winners will be notified on or about Nov. 15.

You may submit your manuscript at www.SteelBeamTheatre.com, or a double-spaced, typewritten copy may be sent to Steel Beam Theatre, 111 W. Main Street, St. Charles, IL 60174.

Include the following information in the upper left hand corner: Division, Name, Address, Telephone numbers, e-mail address and word count.

Adults' word limit is 2,500 and the prize would be $100.

High school students' word limit is 2,000 and prize is $100.

Kids in grades 7/8 have a word limit of 500 and prize of $75. Grades 5/6 have a limit of 250 words and prize of $ 50. Grades 3/4 have a word limit of 100 and prize of $25.

All the info is here.

Actually, I did a post here about John's involvement with the Christmas Story a couple of years ago.

Over 90k

Well, it's time to mention some of the guests that have visited this blog. At this point, well over 90,000 unique visitors have come here from every continent on earth, including some islands. There have been over 100 countries represented, including these more "rare" and "interesting" ones:

Andorra
Antigua and Barbuda
Azerbaidjan
Bahrain
Barbados
Faroe Islands
Gambia
Gibraltar
Kazakhstan
Kyrgyzstan
Kuwait
Malawi
Maldives
Malta
Moldova
Mongolia
Myanmar
New Caledonia
Oman
Qatar
Saint Lucia
Saudi Arabia
Yemen

Some funny blogs

Here's a blog that was lucky to be chosen by Blogger as a "blog of note," which also deserves it (instead of some others that are pitched by powerful PR agents and movie studios): The "blog" of "unnecessary" quotation marks. It contains photos of incorrectly used quotation marks on signs. I've seen many of them, and I'm glad there are folks out there who are documenting it all.

Through there I also found some other blogs:

One blog keeps track of Passive Aggressive Notes with "passive-aggressive notes from roommates, neighbors, coworkers and strangers."

Another blog has a tagline that made me totally laugh out loud: lowercase L, which cries, "Ever notice hand-written signs with letters in all-caps, except for the letter L? It looks like an uppercase i ... WHY DO PEOPlE WRITE lIKE THIS?"

It is so funny, I'm laughing again while doing this post!

And then there's a blog that covers something that I've written about before, which is the misuse of the word "literally." Actually, the blog is literally called Literally, "An English language grammar blog tracking abuse of the word 'literally'."

And here's another blog about something I've mentioned before, which many people throughout the English-writing world notice again and again: Apostrophe Abuse.

Have fun reading all those!

Fancy street

California has given their towns and streets some great names, and so far, I like this one the best in San Francisco: Divisidero. It sounds like they're trying to make the idea of "dividing" sound fancy.

It's sort of like their name for the port area: Embarcadero, as if they're trying to dress up the word/concept "harbor". Though I think that the English word "embarking" sounds quite fancy on its own.

Menu mystery partially solved

I showed a Macao-born Cantonese speaker the swearing menu I did a post about recently, and he told me what the Chinese character means that is above the English "f" word: it means "dry."

It's baffling that the person who translated the menu confused "dry" for an English swear word.

Also, the translator had no clue about the context, either: the first item on the menu contains a character that means "river," but the translator didn't know that the character represents an area in Guandong province that produces rice noodles. So people use that character as a kind of shorthand to refer to the noodles even though it means "river."

It's all too obvious that the menu folks have to find someone who knows both languages well.

Vacation!

I'm taking a much-needed vacation in San Francisco, one of my favorite cities. I'm probably going to meet up with Mahndisa, who (or whom--I'm too tired to figure it out) I first met last year when I was there. She's as smart and interesting as her blog--too bad I haven't been able to meet others on my blog list.

So I might be making San Francisco-related posts from there. I don't know. I'm too wiped out from working a crazy schedule to think too far ahead.

Worksheet generator

I came across a worksheet generator that creates sorting and matching worksheets. You can set up two- to four-column exercises or a "spaghetti exercise" where the "students draw lines between matching items." It's a quick way to test people's knowledge of information, vocabulary, verbs, or whatever else would fit within that simple format.

I need to be friends with kanji

To prepare for the translating that I've resumed, I started to brush up on my kanji with some flashcards that I made a while ago. There are many kanji that I've forgotten, which means many headaches are in store for me. But I already feel invigorated, stimulated, and challenged enough to keep my brain fully occupied.

I remember writing "friends" on the front of a kanji notebook that I created a while ago because I figured that was the only way I was going to be able to memorize them--if I considered them my "friends" instead of "foes" that I had to try to stuff in my brain.

If you're wondering why all this Japanese-related whining is occuring, it's because Japanese is hard. But it's worth the pain :D

Clark

Tonight I was watching the always-enjoyable Inspector Lynley, and noticed that they said "clark" for the word "clerk".

Actually, I first noticed such "odd" British pronunciation last year, when I saw the episode The Seed of Cunning. I didn't think about it until last week, when that episode was re-broadcast. They kept saying "clark" so often, that I had to look at the plot to make sure that it was indeed the word "clerk."

Why do Brits pronounce a word that has an obvious "e" sound with an "a" sound? It's not "clark", it's "clerk." The spelling obviously demonstrates how it "should" sound.

I'm going to ask my British neighbor to say the word. And if he pronounces it like the folks on Lynley, then I'm going to ask him what is wrong with his English ;)

Resuming Japanese translating

Even though I've been studying Japanese, I haven't translated it in a while. But I'm going to resume translating it, which means my brain is going to hurt because not only is there a ton of kanji and vocabulary that is very different from English, but the thinking is different as well. French is easier to translate because you don't need to understand a very different psychology. But trying to translate the Japanese mindset can be quite challenging. At least I can't be accused of having a mushy mind :D

Swearing menu

Someone sent me this picture of a badly translated Chinese menu. I'm wondering if it's real--the use of the "f" word occurs twice, which is weird. However, it represents the same Chinese character each time, so it could've been truly translated very badly.



(source)

Great tagline

I saw a book published by IVP that had a great tagline on the back cover: "Think deep. Live smart."

Quite true.

Geography game

Somebody sent me a link to a very cool geography game that I'm horrible at, though it sounds simple: just drag a bunch of countries onto a world map.

What makes it difficult is that the world map is just a gray blob, so you have to know exactly where each country goes, and all you have to go on is the shape of the country and the "country code top-level domain" (ccTLD).

You can get hints, and if you're wrong (which I usually am), it will show you where the country goes. Needless to say, I needed a lot of help :)

By the way, I had no idea what a ccTLD was, and it sounds quite nerdy and technical, though necessary:

A country code top-level domain (ccTLD) is an Internet top-level domain generally used or reserved for a country or a dependent territory.

ccTLD identifiers are two letters long, and all two-letter top-level domains are ccTLDs. Creation and delegation of ccTLDs is performed by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), and with certain exceptions noted below corresponds to the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country codes maintained by the ISO 3166 Maintenance Agency.

Before Baldwin died

This is weird: I was looking for biographical information about James Baldwin, and found a short one that was written before he died. He died in 1987, but the website folks haven't put anything in past tense.

First of all, the title just says "James Baldwin 1924 – ". Note that there is no end date; there is nothing after the dash.

And in the last paragraph, it's the present perfect tense that implies he's still alive (was still alive) when it was written:

Since his return to the United States Baldwin has accepted this role with some reluctance, stating that he can speak only for himself. Yet he has participated in two published conversations loosely conducted about the topic of race...

Multilingual teen

Ok, I'm very impressed. Tonight I met a friend's brother who is only 18, but speaks German, English, French, Dutch, and Hebrew totally fluently, and is currently studying Italian on his own. That's in addition to other stuff he does, including going to high school.

What is the word for someone who is fluent in five languages (and probably six, since I'm sure he'll ace Italian in no time)? If two languages is bilingual and three languages is trilingual, then is multilingual the only word for someone who's fluent in so many languages?

Bottom line: he's a lucky guy!

Period piece

I often hear the phrase "period piece" on home designing shows. When we hear it, we assume fancy-looking 19th century furniture, but really, what does it mean? I looked it up, and it's described as "A piece of furniture, etc dating from, and in the distinctive style of, a certain historical period."

Isn't *every* part of history a "certain" historical period? Right now we're in the 21st century, so couldn't a 20th century piece be considered "period"? Or even a piece of furniture created yesterday?

I'm may be persnickety about it, but if you really think about it, it's an undefined phrase that has emerged with certain assumptions.

Great advice

I told someone that sometimes we have to endure bad situations to keep our foot in the door, and they told me this:

A foot in a snake pit is a foot nowhere.

That's great advice, and an excellent quote.

Today is under construction

Somebody sent me this picture of a Japanese sign--it's an odd translation that actually has a philosophical message. So maybe the translator is an aspiring poet :)

Understood chav

I was watching tonight's Inspector Lynley episode, and heard one of the characters talk about "chavs". Sometimes I don't understand the slang they use, but I understood what a chav was because I found out about it a while ago. So I guess my language "research" helps in understanding TV programs. Which is important for Entertainment Enjoyment.

But there is some sad news: I didn't know that Series 6 started last week, so I missed the first episode, and have to make due with the remaining few episodes of the series. Which means that I have to somehow find a way to move on in life with an incomplete appreciation of Inspector Lynley's greatness. But I'll get over such a tragedy :)

Monk mistake

I used to like Monk, but I think it's quite lame now, so I occasionally watch it, and if I miss an episode, I don't care. I happened to see it tonight and it wasn't much better than it's been. They've made that show quite annoying, focusing more on Monk's mental problems than actual mysteries. The problem is the departure of his original assistant, even though she was difficult. There are other causes too, I'm sure, but since I don't work in L.A., I have no insider info :) But one thing is quite clear: they're certainly doing a lot of marketing and gimmicks to make up for what the show lacks.

Anyway, I noticed a mistake they made that had to do with English grammar, and something that Monk would've caught. But the show's writers and whoever else looks out for inconsistencies didn't bother to make sure that his character acted accordingly. Monk was in a bar, wasting time as usual, and he met a con man. Here's an approximation of the conversation he had with the con man:

Con Man: I'll bet that I can tell you where you got your shoes.
Monk: Ok.
Con Man: On your feet.
[Monk hands over the money because he lost the bet.]

Okay, if the writers had been paying attention, they'd realize that Monk would've pointed out the grammatical mistake that the con man made. He said "got your shoes." That implies where Monk "acquired" them. If the guy chose to be grammatically correct in order to make the scam work, he wouldn't have used "got" because Monk's feet didn't acquire or give them to Monk. The feet are simply wearing the shoes. So maybe the con man should've said "have."

I'm not enough of an obsessive nerd to write the show, but maybe there's a Monk fan out there who's going to point it out. I'm just a Grammar Watcher :)

Scary stuff

Someone sent me a link to a blog that discussed some very nerdy endeavors, including a search engine that can "take advantage of the structure and nuances of natural language."

But I found something seemingly nerdier when I followed a link to a Parallel Grammar Project:

The Lexical Functional Grammar (LFG) ParGram project is a collaborative effort involving researchers in industrial and academic institutions around the world. The aim of the project is to produce wide coverage grammars for a wide variety of languages (see participating sites below). These are written collaboratively within the linguistic framework of LFG and with a commonly-agreed-upon set of grammatical features.

Ok, if anyone thinks I'm a linguist, then the fact that I don't know what those people are talking about should prove that I'm just a simple-minded language lover. Even the diagram is baffling, and even sort of scary.



But this might be scarier:



In case you're wondering, here's an explanation:

XLE consists of cutting-edge algorithms for parsing and generating Lexical Functional Grammars (LFGs) along with a rich graphical user interface for writing and debugging such grammars...One of the main goals of the XLE is to parse and generate with LFGs efficiently. This is difficult because the LFG formalism, like most unification-based grammar formalisms, is NP complete. This means that in the worst case the time that it takes to parse or generate with an LFG can be exponential in the length of the input. However, natural languages are mostly context-free equivalent, and one should be able to parse them in mostly cubic time. XLE is designed to automatically take advantage of context-freeness in the grammar of a natural language so that it typically parses in cubic time and generates in linear time. This lets grammar writers write grammars in an expressive formalism without necessarily sacrificing performance.

Ok, I don't know what they're talking about. Which means that the folks who've developed that technology are very smart. And scary.

Great show

I saw Rush last night in Chicago, and it was an excellent show. I got a perfect view from the lawn, which I highly recommend. But the seats I got for the Depeche Mode show I went to a couple of years ago were even better. Also, the crowd at the Rush show was full of many American guys, and the Depeche Mode show was full of many Eastern Europeans.

I guess the best seating situation I ever got was at a U2 show--I was literally up front, so close to the band I could see everything they were doing, facial expressions, etc. Actually, there were no seats in that front section--I was with a relatively small group of people who were standing in that front section, surrounded by a stage that wrapped around us, where Bono walked out and sang to the thousands of other people in that stadium.

Suburban blues

I'm going to see my favorite band Rush tomorrow, so I'm posting the lyrics from their song Subdivisions, which is about life in the suburbs. I like to listen to it when I'm driving through the outlying areas of Chicagoland, far away from the city. The lyrics speak for themselves, no need to analyze or explain them.

Sprawling on the fringes of the city
In geometric order
An insulated border
In between the bright lights
And the far unlit unknown

Growing up it all seems so one-sided
Opinions all provided
The future pre-decided
Detached and subdivided
In the mass production zone
Nowhere is the dreamer or the misfit so alone

[Chorus:]
(Subdivisions)
In the high school halls
In the shopping malls
Conform or be cast out
(Subdivisions)
In the basement bars
In the backs of cars
Be cool or be cast out
Any escape might help to smooth the unattractive truth
But the suburbs have no charms to soothe the restless dreams of youth

Drawn like moths we drift into the city
The timeless old attraction
Cruising for the action
Lit up like a firefly
Just to feel the living night

Some will sell their dreams for small desires
Or lose the race to rats
Get caught in ticking traps
And start to dream of somewhere
To relax their restless flight
Somewhere out of a memory of lighted streets on quiet nights...

When you don't notice

Sometimes languages blend and I don't even notice. We'd been speaking Japanese in class, and afterwards, I spoke to someone in English about a story we'd read. Then someone else started speaking Japanese with the teacher about a trip they'd taken, and I was asking them questions about it. Then I realized that I hadn't noticed that we were moving between languages. That's when you know you're not delineating languages or words, just going for the meaning instead.

I've had it happen when I've translated as well. I've seen different languages on something, and I'm supposed to translate one language, but since I sometimes understand another language that's printed nearby, I start reading that one instead of the one I'm supposed to translate. Like today: I was reading a warning in Portuguese and was proceeding to translate it, when I realized I was supposed to translate the French. All I know is that I understand the meaning, and that's what matters.

Steamed crap

Once again, there's some weird English in China. I saw a piece in the Sun-Times (which is really an AP story that's appeared throughout the country) about some badly translated menu items:

Trying to make Chinese cuisine and beverages sound more appealing, the Beijing Tourism Bureau has released a list with 2,753 proposed names to replace some menu entries, the official Xinhua News Agency said. Cited are ''virgin chicken'' (a young chicken dish) or ''burnt lion's head'' (Chinese-style pork meatballs). Also lost in translation: ''steamed crap'' (steamed carp).

What's odd and seemingly arrogant is that the government news outfit said, "These translations either scare or embarrass foreign customers and may cause misunderstanding.'' I don't think foreigners would be embarrassed by what they read--it's the people who wrote those translations who should be embarrassed--they didn't even bother to check their terms with a dictionary or anyone who's knowledgeable in English.

Quiz creation

A while ago, I created an American culture quiz based on questions that non-Americans asked me. Today I showed a non-American the quiz, and they suggested I create another one, or add questions to the current one. So if you have any questions you'd like answered, please let me know here, or you can also email me (the contact info is in my profile).