META – April 05, 2001

The Spiritual Translator Newsletter

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I do not know how it is for you but I have not had much work since January. However, if you read the paper, things are not that bad…. This is what I read:

Chicago, Ill. (SatireWire.com) — The nation's rapidly growing army of unemployed breathed a collective sigh of relief Thursday after Chicago Fed Chief Michael Moskow announced that the U.S. economy is not in a recession.

"This just goes to show you that things are never as bad as they appear," said the 400,000 people laid off since December. "Mind you, they appear pretty bad to us, but we don't have our fingers on the pulse of the economy."

"Wait till we tell the guys at the soup kitchen," they added.

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IN META TODAY

1. Suggestion for our holidays from Susana

2. A TRIBUTE TO THE UNITED STATES

3. TALKING ABOUT AMERICANS

4. ALL IN THE WORDS

5. IF YOU ARE NOT SURE OF A WORD, LOOK IT UP..

6. A SITE ABOUT NEOLOGISM

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1. Suggestion for our holidays from Susana

Laptops... computers... email... Holidays? May I suggest you "shut shop"?

My usual line is to drop a line to all my main clients saying, "I'm out of town doing some interpreting work at a congress" or something similar. (I mean, they really cannot accept that I could possibly go away for a few days for pleasure when they're working - they forget I work over Christmas, for example, when they shut shop!) I then get all my mail left on the server and pop in every now and then at an Internet café or similar just to make sure that none of the small clients has contacted me and then reply to them in the sense that "Sorry, I'm away at a Congress until...." And that's it!

Sure, one does lose SOME work, but then - wasn't it meant to be a rest from work, you know, like everyone else has from time to time? When I do get back I find myself mentally refreshed and in a much better state to cope with general rush deadlines and other outrageous demands. The family's happier too!

Cheers

Susana Stuteley

Well Susana, I did exactly that. Not because I wanted to but because I went to Cuba (if you remember where I was going for my vacations). Can you imagine Castro giving Internet access to the Cubans? The best you can get is a hotel, which is connected to the “official” ISP in La Havana. The management (not you) can send and receive email but nobody can browse the web (except the Castrist Mafia). I had access to the computer of the Sales Manager (he was kind enough to let me send messages if I wanted to). I tried to pick up my email but his computer was connected to a main computer in the hotel and I could not change anything to his POP3 and SMTP (unless I give his email address to my clients I cannot receive any message in Cuba). Conclusion, if you go to Cuba, forget about working on the Net. I was going to tell you what a rotten life these poor Cubans have (with an average salary of US$10/month) and a few horrendous laws (you spend more time in jail for killing a cow or a horse than for killing a man… cows are not sacred like in India..no! It is meat and meat is controlled by the government, you cannot even kill your own cow for food, even if you bought it, it belongs to the government; the police will stop the usually overcrowded bus and search everybody to see if they have more than a pound of coffee or tomatoes. Then they confiscate the food, etc…) but I decided not to say anything. In a beautiful island like Cuba, there is the possibility to be happy even if you are poor but the regime does not give you much choice. No wonder, they do not allow the Cubans to leave Cuba… they would be governing an empty island…and they would also leave because they would have no more slaves to make them rich.

While Castro was destroying a country, shall we compare what the Americans were doing in the past 50 years?

2. A TRIBUTE TO THE UNITED STATES

America: The Good Neighbor.

Widespread but only partial news coverage was given recently to a remarkable editorial broadcast from Toronto by Gordon Sinclair, a Canadian television commentator. What follows is the full text of his trenchant remarks as printed in the Congressional Record:

"This Canadian thinks it is time to speak up for the Americans as the most generous and possibly the least appreciated people on all the earth.

Germany, Japan and, to a lesser extent, Britain and Italy were lifted out of the debris of war by the Americans who poured in billions of dollars and forgave other billions in debts. None of these countries is today paying even the interest on its remaining debts to the United States.

When France was in danger of collapsing in 1956, it was the Americans who propped it up, and their

reward was to be insulted and swindled on the streets of Paris. I was there. I saw it.

When earthquakes hit distant cities, it is the United States that hurries in to help. This spring, 59 American communities were flattened by tornadoes. Nobody helped.

The Marshall Plan and the Truman Policy pumped billions of dollars into discouraged countries. Now newspapers in those countries are writing about the decadent, warmongering Americans.

I'd like to see just one of those countries that is gloating over the erosion of the United States dollar build its own airplane. Does any other country in the world have a plane to equal the Boeing Jumbo Jet, the

Lockheed Tri-Star, or the Douglas DC10? If so, why don't they fly them? Why do all the International lines except Russia fly American Planes?

Why does no other land on earth even consider putting a man or woman on the moon? You talk about Japanese technocracy, and you get radios. You talk about German technocracy, and you get automobiles. You talk about American technocracy, and you find men on the moon - not once, but several times - and safely home again.

You talk about scandals, and the Americans put theirs right in the store window for everybody to look at. Even their draft-dodgers are not pursued and hounded. They are here on our streets, and most of them, unless they are breaking Canadian laws, are getting American dollars from ma and pa at home to spend here.

When the railways of France, Germany and India were breaking down through age, it was the Americans who rebuilt them. When the Pennsylvania Railroad and the New York Central went broke, nobody loaned them an old caboose. Both are still broke.

I can name you 5000 times when the Americans raced to the help of other people in trouble. Can you name me even one time when someone else raced to the Americans in trouble? I don't think there was outside help even during the San Francisco earthquake.

Our neighbors have faced it alone, and I'm one Canadian who is damned tired of hearing them get kicked around. They will come out of this thing with their flag high. And when they do, they are entitled to thumb their nose at the lands that are gloating over their present troubles. I hope Canada is not one of those."

Stand proud, America!

Contribution Marianne Ajana (Denmark)

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You are going to ask me: Why do you talk about this in META?

Well, as a translator, I would not have such a comfortable life if it was not for the States and I want to make sure that everybody knows that I am grateful to the Americans for inventing Internet which brought about this explosion in the need for translation. I also feel that to some extent you have all benefited directly or indirectly from them. The recession in the U.S.A. is a proof that our wealth depends on how well they are doing. If they have a slow down so have I. Of course there is a new President who seems to be handling things as a cowboy… let us hope that he is going to learn a few things in his new position before he does some real damage to the States.

Oh boy, I think I am going to get a lot of email about this….

Let us laugh….

3. TALKING ABOUT AMERICANS

An American soldier, serving in World War II, had just returned from several weeks of intense action on the German front lines.

He had finally been granted R&R and was on a train bound for London. The train was very crowded, so the soldier walked the length of the train, looking for an empty seat.

The only unoccupied seat was directly adjacent to a well-dressed middle-aged lady and was being used by her little dog. The war weary soldier asked, "Please, ma'am, may I sit in that seat?" The English woman looked down her nose at the soldier, sniffed and said, "You Americans. You are such a rude class of people. Can't you see my little Fifi is using that seat?"

The soldier walked away, determined to find a place to rest, but after another trip down to the end of the train, found himself again facing the woman with the dog. Again he asked, "Please, lady. May I sit there?

I'm very tired." The English woman wrinkled her nose and snorted, "You Americans! Not only are you rude, you are also arrogant. Imagine!"

The soldier didn't say anything else; he leaned over, picked up the little dog, tossed it out the window of the train and sat down in the empty seat.

The woman shrieked and railed, and demanded that someone defend her and chastise the soldier.

An English gentleman sitting across the aisle spoke up, "You know, sir, you Americans do seem to have a penchant for doing the wrong thing. You eat holding the fork in the wrong hand. You drive your autos on the wrong side of the road.... And now, sir, you've thrown the wrong bitch out the window."

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WINDOWS 98 SOUTHERN EDITION

Don't read this if you're a "Yankee", it'll just confuse you!

Dear Consumers:

It has come to our attention that a few copies of WINDOWS 98 SOUTHERN EDITION may have accidentally been shipped outside the South. If you have one of these, you may need some help understanding the commands.

The Southern edition may be recognized by the unique opening screen.

It reads: WINDERS 98, with a background picture of General Robert E. Lee superimposed on a Confederate flag. It is shipped with a Dukes of Hazard screen saver.

Please also note:

The Recycle Bin is labeled "Outhouse"

My Computer is called "This Dern Contraption"

Dial up Networking is called "Good Ol' Boys"

Control Panel is known as the "The Dashboard"

Hard Drive is referred to as "4 Wheel Drive"

Floppies are "them little ol plastic disc things"

Instead of an error message a "garbage bag and roll of duct tape" pops up

CHANGES IN TERMINOLOGY IN SOUTHERN EDITION:

OK . . . . . . . . . . ats aw-right

Cancel . . . . . . . stopdat

Reset . . . . . . . . try er agin

Yes . . . . . . . . . yep

No . . . . . . . . . . noop

Find . . . . . . . . . hunt fer it

Go to. . . . . . . . over yonder

Back . . . . . . . . back yonder

Help . . . . . . . hep me out here

Stop . . . . . . . . kwitit

Start . . . . . . . . crank er up

Settings . . . . . . settins

Programs . . . . . stuff at duz stuff

Documents . . . stuff ah done did

Also note that SOUTHERN EDITION does not recognize capital letters or punctuation marks.

Some programs that are exclusive to Winders 98:

Tiperiter . . . . . . . . A word processing program

colerin book . . . . . a graphics program

cyferin mersheen . calculator

outhouse paper . . notepad

iner-net . . . . . . . . Microsoft Explorer 4.0

pichers . . . . . . . . . A graphics viewer

We regret any inconvenience it may have caused if you received a copy of the SOUTHERN EDITION. You may return it to Microsoft for a replacement version. I hope this helps all y'all!

Billy Bob Gates

Head Honcho

Contribution: Diana Howell (USA)

4. ALL IN THE WORDS

SCRABBLE is the game that translators love. I have not seen the equivalent of: DES CHIFFRES ET DES LETTRES on television. Have you?

Dormitory