Sorry I did not send you any META in October, but
I have been swamped with work.
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IN META TODAY
1. MY POINT OF VIEW
2. ALL IN THE WORDS
3. HISTORY
OF TIME
4. FAMOUS
QUOTES
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1. MY POINT OF VIEW
What translators have in common is the fact that
they speak and write 2 or more languages and that they have chosen to live from
their translations… but that is all. Some will start their translation career
with a diploma in translation, others in marketing, others in literature or
history, etc. In fact I have known so
many translators in my life that I think I have a good idea of our common
points and our differences.
There are different types: the artist, the
businessman, the part-time housewife, the workaholic, the “civil servant”,
etc…and they all have different goals in their work: make a master-piece, make
money, pass time, make a living, etc… You have the serious and the
“not-so-serious” translators. However, there is one thing they all have in
common.
They want to be considered as human beings! Funny,
isn’t it!
I have received a lot of messages (not one but
dozens) saying: “we are not machines”,
“we are not robots”, “we are not slaves”… this coming when I have asked
them to deliver a certain word amount for such and such a date. When the work
is not delivered on time, I complain…as if I did not have the right to
complain.
Does this mean that when we work on our computer,
we have the feeling that we are slaves, that we are just another machine? Are we afraid that a generation of computers
is going to replace us? Being alone with our keyboard, our screen, our
databanks and our software and above all alone with the text we have to
translate…have we got a feeling of helplessness? Do we feel that we have a
non-productive job? The writer creates a text but we do not create anything. We
reproduce a text from one language to the other and if one day a computer can
do it then we are nothing. We have lost our profession; we have lost our reason
to live. At least this is what we think deep down. Maybe we do not even realize
it or if we do, we know that this future is far away and that we might retire before
we see this wonderful new generation of computers.
In fact many translators, after doing this work
for some time cannot stand it any more and try to start another career. Many
succeed and stay out of the translation business.
On the other hand, what if a translator has to
translate a masterpiece, a real work of art or even just a poem. Don’t you
think that he has to be a genius to “recreate” or “reproduce” in another
language this work of art? And as translators, we know that. It takes time to
“recreate” and a machine cannot do it.
So, as translators, we have to make a distinction
between the job that makes us live, the business commitment with a client to
deliver a product of acceptable quality within a given agreed-upon time and the
more sublime side of our profession. And yes, when we accept a translation
contract for a text completely deprived of interest, we are selling our time
for money, we have to deliver the translation on time and we do not like it.
Slaves, robot and machines do not get paid, we do. Please bear it in mind, next
time, your client is asking you to be on time. He is going to pay you and he
deserves to receive his “product” when he asked for it.
Let us laugh……
2. ALL IN THE WORDS
We
are using words without thinking of their meanings. Here are some examples:
· Why are there interstate highways in Hawaii?
·
Why do they call it rush hour when nothing moves?
·
Why do they call them "apartments" when they’re all stuck together?
·
Why are they called ‘stands’ when they’re made for sitting?
·
Why is it called a TV "set" when you only get one?
·
Why is it when two planes almost hit each other it is called a "near
miss"? Shouldn’t it be called a "near hit"?
·
If you can’t drink and drive, why do you need a driver’s license to buy liquor,
and why do bars have parking lots?
·
Why do fat chance and slim chance mean the same thing?
·
How do you KNOW it’s an ENDLESS LOOP?
·
Why is it that when you transport something by car, it’s called a shipment, but
when you transport something by ship, it’s called cargo?
·
Why does your nose run and your feet smell?
3. HISTORY OF TIME
3050 B.C. - A Sumerian invents the wheel. Within
the week, the idea is stolen and duplicated by other Sumerians, thereby
establishing the business ethic for all times.
2900 B.C. - Wondering why the Egyptians call that
new thing a Sphinx becomes the first of the world's Seven Great Wonders.
1850 B.C. - Britons proclaim Operation Stonehenge
a success. They've finally gotten those boulders arrange in a sufficiently
meaningless pattern to confuse the hell out of scientists for centuries.
1785 B.C. - Babylonian scientists introduce the
first calendar, composed of a year with 354 days.
1768 B.C. - Babylonians realize something is wrong
when winter begins in June.
776 B.C. - The world's first known money appears
in Persia, immediately causing the world's first known counterfeiter to appear
in Persia the next day.
525 B.C. - The first Olympics are held, and prove
similar to the modern games, except that the Russians don't try to enter a
six-footer with a moustache in the women's shot put. However, the Egyptians do!
410 B.C. - Rome ends the practice of throwing
debtors into slavery, thus removing the biggest single obstacle to the
development of the credit card.
404 B.C. - The Peloponnesian war has been going on
for 27 years now because neither side can find a treaty writer who knows how to
spell Peloponnesian.
214 B.C. - Tens of thousands of Chinese labour for
a generation to build the 1,500 mile long Great Wall of China. And after all
that, it still doesn't keep the neighbour’s dog out.
1 B.C. - Calendar manufacturers find themselves in
total disagreement over what to call next year.
79 A.D. - Buying property in Pompeii turns out to
have been a lousy real estate investment.
432 - St. Patrick introduces Christianity to
Ireland, thereby giving the natives something interesting to fight
about for the rest of their recorded history.
1000 - Leif Ericsson discovers America, but decides
it's not worth mentioning.
1043 - Lady Godiva finds a means of demonstrating
against high taxes that immediately makes everyone forget what she is
demonstrating against.
1125 - Arabic numerals are introduced to Europe,
enabling peasants to solve the most baffling problem that confronts them: How
much tax do you owe on MMMDCCCLX Lira when you're in the XXXVI percent bracket?
1233 - The Inquisition is set up to torture and
kill anyone who disagrees with the Law of the Church. However, the practice is
so un-Christian that it is permitted to continue for only 600 years.
1297 - The world's first stock exchange opens, but
no one has the foresight to buy IBM or Xerox.
1433 - Portugal launches the African slave trade,
which just proves what a small, ambitious country can do with a little bit of
ingenuity and a whole lot of evil!
1456 - An English judge reviews Joan of Arc's case
and cancels her death sentence. Unfortunately for her, she was put to death in
1431.
1492 - Columbus proves how lost he really is by
landing in the Bahamas, naming the place San Salvador, and calling the people
who live there Indians.
1497 - Amerigo Vespucci becomes the 7th or 8th
explorer to become the new world, but the first to think of naming it in honour
of himself... the United States of Vespuccia!
1508 - Michelangelo finally agrees to paint the
ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, but he still refuses to wash the
windows.
1513 - Ponce de Leon claims he found the Fountain
of youth, but dies of old age trying to remember where it was he found it.
1522 - Scientists, who know the world is flat,
conclude that Magellan made it all the way around by crawling across the
bottom.
1568 - Saddened over the slander of his good name,
Ivan the Terrible kills another 100,000 peasants to make them stop calling him
Ivan the Terrible.
1607 - The Indians laugh themselves silly as the
first European tourist to visit Virginia tries to register as
"John Smith".
1618 - Future Generations are doomed as the
English execute Sir Walter Raleigh, but allow his tobacco plants to live.
1642 - Nine students receive the first Bachelor of
Arts degrees conferred in America, and immediately discover there are no jobs
open for a kid with a liberal arts education.
1670 - The pilgrims are too busy burning false witches
to observe the golden anniversary of their winning religious freedom.
1755 - Samuel Johnson issues the first English
Dictionary, at last providing young children with a book they can look up dirty
words in.
1758 - New Jersey is chosen as the site of
America's first Indian reservation, which should give Indians an idea of the
kind of shabby living conditions they can expect from here on out.
1763 - The French and Indian War ends. The French
and Indians both lost.
1770 - The shooting of three people in the Boston
Massacre touches off the Revolution. 200 Years later, three shootings in Boston
will be considered just about average for a Saturday Night.
1773 - Colonists dump tea into Boston Harbour.
British call the act "barbaric", noting that no one added cream.
1776 - Napoleon decides to maintain a position of
neutrality in the American Revolution, primarily because he is only seven years
old.
1779 - John Paul Jones notifies the British,
"I have just begun to fight!" and then feels pretty foolish when he
discovers that his ship is sinking.
1793 - "Let them eat cake!" becomes the
most famous thing Marie Antoinette ever said. Also, the least diplomatic thing
she ever said. Also, the last thing she ever said.
1799 - Translation of the Rosetta Stone finally
enables scholars to learn that Egyptian hieroglyphics don't say anything
important. "Dear Ramses, How are you? I am fine."
1805 - Robert Fulton invents the torpedo.
1807 - Robert Fulton invents the steamship so he
has something to blow up with his torpedo.
1815 - Post Office policy is established as Andrew
Jackson wins the Battle of New Orleans a month after he should have received
the letter telling him the War of 1812 is over.
1840 - William Henry Harrison is elected president
in a landslide, proving that the campaign motto, "Tippecanoe and Tyler
too" is so meaningless that very few can disagree with it.
1850 - Henry Clay announces, "I'd rather be
right than president," which gets quite a laugh, coming from a guy who has
run for president five times without winning.
1859 - Charles Darwin writes "Origin of the
Species". It has the same general plot as "Planet of the Apes",
but fails to gross as much money.
1865 - Union Soldiers face their greatest
challenge of the war: getting General Grant sober enough to accept Lee's
surrender.
1894 - Thomas Edison displays the first motion
picture, and everybody likes it except the movie critics.
1903 - The opening of the Trans-Siberian Railway
enables passengers from Moscow to reach Vladivostok in eight days, which is a
lot sooner than most of them want to get there.
1910 - The founding of the Boy Scouts of America
comes as bad news to old ladies who would rather cross the street by
themselves.
1911 - Ronald Amundsen discovers the South Pole
and confirms what he's suspected all along: It looks a helluva lot like the
North Pole!
1912 - People with Reservations for the voyage of
the Titanic get their money back.
1920 - The 18th Amendment to the Constitution
makes drinking illegal in the U.S. so everyone stops. Except for the 40 million
who don't stop!
1924 - Hitler is released from prison four years
early, after convincing the parole board that he is a changed man who won't
cause any more trouble.
1928 - Herbert Hoover promises "a chicken in
every pot and a car in every garage," but he neglects to add that most
Americans will soon be without pots and garages.
1930 - Pluto is discovered. Not the dog, stupid;
the planet. The dog wasn't discovered until 1938.
1933 - German housewives begin to realize why that
crazy wallpaper hanger with the moustache never came back to finish his work.
1933 - Hitler establishes the Third Reich, and
announces that it will last for a thousand years. As matters develop, he is
only 988 years off.
1934 - John Dillinger is gunned down by police as
he leaves a Chicago movie theatre. And just to make the evening a complete
washout, he didn't enjoy the movie either.
1934 - As if the Great Depression weren't giving
businessmen enough headaches, Ralph Nader is born.
1938 - Great Britain and Germany sign a peace
treaty, thereby averting all possibility of WWII.
1944 - Hitler's promise of Volkswagens for all
Germans as soon as they've won the war doesn't prove to be as strong an
incentive as he had hoped.
4. QUOTES
XXIX
"I
think a secure profession for young people is history teacher, because in the
future, there will be so much more of it to teach." - Bill Muse
"In
weightlifting, I don't think sudden, uncontrolled urination should
automatically disqualify you."
- Jack Handey
"I
read in the paper, this woman, she said: 'I want nothing to do with a man. All
I want is his sperm.' I was a bit worried about that. I don't give my sperm to
any Tom, Dick or Harry. Especially on the first date." - Arnold Brown
"To
me, truth is not some vague, foggy notion. Truth is real. And, at the same
time, unreal. Fiction and fact and everything in between, plus some things I
can't remember, all rolled into one big 'thing.' This is truth, to me." - Jack Handey
"When
I first proposed to Mrs. Claypool, I thought she had only seven million. But
the extra million has never interfered with my feelings for her." - Groucho Marx
"When
I die, I'm leaving my body to science fiction." - Steven Wright
"There
are only ten commandments. That's nice for [Moses], because there's hundreds of
things you're not supposed to do. Why are there only Ten Commandments? ...
Maybe God had pity on Moses because Moses had a bad back. 'See these heavy
tablets, Moses? Just bring a few down.'" - Arthur Brown
"I
was reading the dictionary. I thought
it was a poem about everything."
- Steven Wright
"Can't
we just get rid of wine lists? Do we really have to be reminded every time we
go out to a nice restaurant that we have no idea what we are doing? Why don't
they just give us a trigonometry quiz with the menu?" - Seinfeld
"All
those women who say they scoff at cheesy, sentimental pick-up lines are
obviously hanging around the wrong men. For me, a simple 'If you ever want to
see your Mommy alive again...' works every time." - Don Swain
"On
TV, the commercial says that 8 out of 10 people suffer from hemorrhoids. Does this mean the other 2 people enjoy
them?" - Unknown