Like pearls to swine?

Wordsmiths value words. It is part of the job description of writers, playwrights, copy editors, transcreaters, translators and editors, to name a few, to care deeply about the quality of writing and content.  Otherwise, there is no point in investing so much time and effort.  Unfortunately, two of these professionals often face a certain dilemma since they have no control of the actual initial writing process and thus often receive material that is poorly written in terms of language, problematic in content and/or poorly structured. Since their mandate is not to rewrite the material but instead to respect the desire of the writer, the question arises whether it is appropriate to improve the material.

Since many writers, especially scientists and foreign students, lack thorough knowledge of language, editors and translators often receive texts whose grammar and syntax are atrocious. It is clear that the language errors are not intentional.  Therefore, it is common practice to polish the language, eliminating errors and rendering the sentences correct in terms of grammar and syntax. Occasionally, for reasons of style or ignorance, a writer uses highfalutin terms or the wrong register.  Since the goal is a proper text, it is acceptable to rain on the parade and rein in the language to a certain degree, while of course trying to maintain the voice of the writer as much as possible. In these two cases, the editor or translator actively intervenes to improve the text as required.

In regards to content, regardless of pain suffered, the rule tends to be “garbage in, garbage out.” Since editors and translators are language, not content, experts and are ultimately paid by the hour, they have no choice but to faithfully transmit the poor content. For example, when a writer applies exaggerated academic style to attain the required number of pages and restates each and every idea a copious number of times, it may be painful to read but that is what the writer wants. Likewise, when the text essentially has no content but is filled with beautiful sentences, as in much modern French writing, laissez les bon temps roulez, as they say in New Orleans. In these cases, it is necessary to hold your nose and work only on the language.

There are cases where it is impossible to accept the material blindly.  If the writer insists on inserting incorrect or misleading information into the text, the editor or translator should not be an accomplice to this act. The best policy is to refer the issues to the writer.  On a language level, if the structure of the work in terms of paragraphing and sectioning is inappropriate or non-existent, the correction process is too time consuming to be part of the assigned task. Once again, the writer should be made aware of the problems.

These guidelines are, of course, my opinion.  I personally know many translators and editors that would disagree with me regarding any of the above statements. Passion and opinion are part and parcel of wordsmiths. You could say that some porcine look good with fancy necklaces and are intelligent enough to appreciate them.

Sweet thoughts – a sweettooth is not wasted on the youth

Thinking about taste memories from the past, I realized that the foods that made the greatest impression, in both the physical and emotional sense, on my mind were sweets.  I can picture and almost even taste them.  I have no problem remembering the pleasure I had in consuming them, regardless of whether I would eat them today. They even create a pleasant sensation merely thinking of them.

As my mother is French and I grew up in the United States, I enjoyed sweets from both sides of the Atlantic. At home, my breakfast was a petit pain au chocolat – a small croissant with chocolate. I know that such a breakfast would be considered highly unhealthily today but my mother justifiably was more concerned that I ate something before school. By the way, even in France, they don’t make them like they used to do, light and chocolaty at the same time. For special occasions, we might get an éclair, once again a light dough but with a wonderful chocolate cream, or a cannoli, an Italian pastry roll with vanilla cream.  On winter days, we might get a cup of hot Dutch Droste chocolate, which, in my mind, was in another league from any other hot chocolate. Later I discovered kouabiedes, Greek cookies made with butter and sugar, and a crêpe au Grand Marnier, a simple crepe with sugar, Grand Marnier and lemon, still one of favorites. During my time in France, I learned to appreciate Italian gelato, relishing those small but tasty cones with pistachio ice cream bought from the cart near the Hotel de Ville in Paris. A real treat was a chocolate liegeoise from the Drugstore on the Champs Elysée. In Paris, I also discovered the joy of banane flambée, the Chinese flambeed dessert. I admittedly was not a typical American kid.

So you don’t think I was a snob, I equally enjoyed American sweets.  The pleasure of plowing through a box of Oreo or Chips Ahoy cookies with some milk is as basic as it gets.  By the way, I always first opened the Oreo when I was a kid. For that matter, I would never refuse a jelly donut if was offered nor do I do today especially since Hanukah is about to arrive with all its sufganiot, the Israel version of that donut on condition that they are fresh or made by my wife. On special occasions, I would have a banana split, which consists of a banana split into two with ice cream, sauce and whipped cream on top, a root beer float, a scoop of vanilla ice cream in a glass of cold root beer, grantedly a strange but tasty combination that I think has disappeared, or a chocolate malt, which is like a chocolate shake with malt added to it, giving it a singular taste. Curiously enough, it is still sold at Dodger Stadium, which is appropriate since the whole park, food included, is a relic of the 1960’s. In summer camps, I actually liked the cinnamon toast and smores, camp-fire roasted marshmallows with chocolate on a graham cracker, as long as the marshmallows were only lightly roasted, not burnt.  In college, due to the awful dorm food, I survived on special banana mocha milk shakes, which included, besides milk, chocolate and coffee ice cream (with pieces of coffee in it), chocolate syrup, a shot of expresso and a banana. Believe it or not, I still lost weight even with that caloric package.

I am no longer 20 years old nor even 30.  Yet, I still have a sweet tooth.  Today, my taste is more Middle Eastern. I relish a piece of baklava or ush el bul bul (bird’s nest) as well as a crème brulée. I have not taken to local crembo, a chocolate-covered crème puff sold in the winter “instead” of ice cream. In practice, my standard dessert is a plain medjool date, moist and just sweet enough to end a meal satisfactory.  I do confess to occasionally pigging out on many of those sweets from the past. All in all, I am happy that I profited from my youthful metabolic balance as much as possible and did not waste my youth, at least in that aspect. 

All employees great and small

I failed to post last week due to circumstances beyond my control. My father fell down, broke his hip and had a stroke.  I flew to the United States to help my parents.  Fortunately, the danger is over.  He is currently at a rehab center starting the long process of getting back on his feet.

During this difficult week, I had the wonderful experience of interacting with great front-line employees in many enterprises. Their dedication was expressed in a variety of ways that all shared one feature, caring. For example, the manager at the Tarzana Inn arranged for me to have my regular room even though I gave him only 24 hours’ notice. The barista at Peet’s Coffee in Tarzana learned my name and favorite drink by the third day (dark chocolate orange mocha, to be specific). The nurse at the rehab center volunteered the Wi-Fi code without being asked. All these acts, among others, were not sales in a formal sense but much better than any sales pitch could ever be because they were from the heart, not a formal sales pitch whose purpose was to make money.

I am aware that the CEO's of many companies work long hours, successfully foresee future developments, understand developing technology and create successful corporate cultures. They are well compensated too.  Yet, in the vast majority of cases, customers neither know their name nor directly feel their presence. People notice and remember if the sales clerk or waitress was pleasant and made every possible effort to help, even if such effort was not part of their jobs. They notice that that they no longer had to explain how weak they wanted their coffee or how wide the shoe had to be. In short, customers appreciate being treated like individuals, not numbers, and reward enterprises that do so.

That lesson is valuable for all freelancers and small enterprises that cannot compete on price with larger companies. Customers will pay more if they are treated as special.  This competitive advantage includes the ability to pick up the phone and reach a person immediately instead of a going through a labyrinth of phone options, have a meaningful discussion of payment terms, receive an immediate solution to an issue and not have to start at the beginning with a new service representative each time. The scale of a freelance or small business becomes a strength and an advantage as compared to its large corporate companies.

Of course, this strength has to be structured, marketed and applied in order to be effective. The failure to invest time in understanding your customers, express this advantage or treat each customer as special will nullify it. This means that successful entrepreneurs must know the essentials of each of their clients, ensure that both existing and potential clients know that they will receive special service and conscientiously provide it.

Since freelancers wear all hats by definition, they only have to persuade themselves that special service is worth the extra effort, a much easier task than creating a corporate culture and hiring the right employees that will do so.  You are all employees, great and small.

Media hyperopia or regional blindness

Many years ago, New York Magazine published its famous map of the world as seen by New Yorkers, with New York and California occupying 3/4 of the map.  This visual distortion may have been caused by cultural prejudices and airplane connections.  In any case, the residents of the east coast knew and still know much more about Los Angeles than Portland, Maine or Raleigh, North Carolina despite the latter’s closer proximity. Recently, I started following the posts of a professional colleague that lives in Lebanon. Keep in mind that I live in Karmiel, some 17 kilometers (10 miles) from the Lebanese border and 48 kilometers (30 miles) from the Syrian border. Reading his posts, I realized that I knew close to nothing about what is going on either country, not mention Jordan, also not far away, about which no I have no idea what is happening.  Yet, I easily follow events in Washington, London, Paris and even Ankara, which are much farther away, through daily reports in Israeli media.

One cause of this news blackout is simply lack of air time.  We in Israel have more than enough to talk about with our multiple elections, clashes with the Palestinians and tension with the Syrians, not to mention Bibi’s legal troubles. Trump, Putin, Nasrallah, and Erdogan. There is no problem filling any empty moment in the news. As a result, there is no media oxygen for Lebanon’s financial problems and Syria’s rebuilding as well as anything about Jordan. Egypt is in another continent for that matter. Yet, events in these countries have a direct influence on stability in the area. The only way to find out is to access the foreign media in Arabic, which most Jews in Israel cannot do even when they speak some Arabic. In terms of media, our neighbors are invisible.

To be fair, part of the problem is the lack of available information.  Israel is the only country in the Middle East with freedom of the press. In other words, official announcements from these countries are less than reliable.  Objective reporting comes from underground sources, who do not have a complete picture. For example, it is impossible to know how many Syrians have been killed in the last year or what the state of the health system is. Any objective fact that does come to light from an official news source may be accurate but partial as these governments tend to censure negative news. So, sometimes the media reports nothing because there is nothing to report.

Still, some would say that the Israeli media has an unspoken policy of neglecting the region.  I strongly doubt it as freedom of the press is still strong enough to prevent government-inspired news blackout over the long term. I don’t buy this conspiracy theory.

To be fair, many countries tend to ignore their closest neighbors. The American press has extremely little to say about Canada and Mexico.  The French hear more about Israel than Belgium, with whom they share a common language, mostly. I wonder how much news Londoners receive on Wales and Scotland, not to mention Northern Ireland. The BBC even ignores the weather in the Republic of Ireland, as a policy in my opinion, even it reports it in Northern Ireland. I don’t know if this regional blindness applies to Asia or South or central America but would be interested in finding out.

So, t New Yorkers are not alone in having their vision affected by culture and media. Physical distance and economic impact have less influence on our media than one would think.  The media worldwide is farsighted, i.e., hyperopic.

Famine relief – Profiting from lean times

Most freelancers, including translators, suffer the extremes of work demand. A period of having to refuse work is suddenly followed by one of seeking work.  To one degree or another, this instability is a part of doing business.  As such, the freelancer must learn to cope with it both psychologically and actually benefit from the free time. The key to keeping in an even keel in those quiet times is to view the free hours not at a threat but instead as an opportunity.

To clarify, the cause of the quietness on the email front may be known or unknown. Worldwide, August and the three weeks from December 15^th to January 6^th are great for retailers but awful for service providers simply because most non-retail businesses close or go in sleep mode. Likewise, national and bank holidays affect transactions for one to three days.  A quick Google search can quickly identify the various and multifarious off-days of a given country.  In fact, in Israel and many countries, there is the term “after the holidays” to explain why nothing can be done during certain times of the year. A hidden factor may be an internal company matter or specific sector crisis. The long term and fundamental causes of downtime are slow but constant trends in the economy or business sector, such as a recession or conglomeration, which change the supply and demand curve. Clearly, a despairing freelancer can often but not always find a comforting explanation for the down trend.

A time to breath after a long stretch of intense work can actually feel quite refreshing.  It is the ideal moment to clean up unfinished matters.  These include ongoing accounting or financial issues, bill collecting, financial reporting, email correspondence and inventory, to name just a few. Given the importance of the Internet for most businesses, it is vital to periodically review and revise all profiles, brand identifiers and approaches.  All these tasks tend to be postponed while work is heavy but must be carried out in order to maintain a business.  In industrial management terms, these actions are considered productive even if they are not lucrative since they must be performed in order to maintain business efficiency.

Having completed these essential tasks, the freelancer can use the time to develop known potential contacts. During busy periods, the names of people and companies that could turn into clients come up. The quiet now makes it possible to carefully consider the manner of developing these contacts and actually follow up. Not only is this time productively spent but such actions are an essential part of future growth.

For sole proprietors, the background quite allows them to switch hats and become the director of marketing and research.  The problem with being a freelancer is the multiplicity of roles that need to filled and leads to the problem of “jack of all trades and master of none”. With only one hat on the head, the entrepreneur can analyze, research and discuss macro medium- and long-term trends and decide on actions to take to stay in line with them. Such a process requires time and concentration, which is only generally available when work is slow.

Of course, business people are also human.  Quiet times provide the best opportunity to spend time with family and friends without watching the clock. Short and even long trips become possible. It is a great time to lose a few grams of extra weight or see nature (or pick mushrooms as we do.).  It becomes possible to put a check on household tasks that have been put on hold for months or higher end purchases that must be considered carefully, such as buying a car. 

The message is that down time can be up time, both psychologically and operationally. It is the ideal time to accomplish all tasks that cannot be or simply are not handled when work is aplenty. As such, the freelancer can more easily maintain a good attitude and worry less. Remember that growth in children occurs when they sleep. Likewise, freelancers prepare their growth when business is slow. They can profit from the worst of times no less than from the best of times.

Lexical sexual harassment – In English and Hebrew

The most innocent phrase can turn into a sexual double-entendre if speakers so wish and understand.  The classic example is the line “what knockers” in Young Frankenstein. This human preoccupation with sex has an everchanging influence on the words we use.  Whether we stop using them, consider their use carefully and or ensure their innocence, it affects our lexical choice.

In English, the word gay once only met happy and could be used without second thought.  The sexual identity aspect of the word has all but eliminated use of its more original meaning. Likewise, the first name Dick was common and even made famous (and infamous) by the cartoon character Dick Tracy and the ex-President (Tricky) Dick Nixon, formally known as Richard.  Today, almost no parents would give that name. Other words have mixed asexual and sexual application. On an official form, the word sex is generally marked by two options: male or female. Yet, even here, many forms are using the more neutral word gender to avoid any connotation. In some parts of America, people ask whether you want white meat, not the chicken breast, so as not to offend the more sensitive. To maintain a more genteel atmosphere, the family feline is referred to using two words, pussy cat, not only the first one. When society requires correctness, people must exercise due care in choosing their words.

Hebrew also has its sexual innuendo. A בולבול [bulbul] is a type of bird but every Israeli child knows that it can refer to the male sex organ.  Fortunately, people very rarely actually talk about the bird. There are two verbs in Hebrew that mean to finish: לסיים [lesayem] andלגמור [ligmor]. The latter also is descriptive in sex and, thus, is being used less and less in normal conversation. An interesting example is the Hebrew verb לזרום [lezrom], which means to flow. In slang, in regards to a woman, it means that she is easily convinced to have sex. Most of the time, no interference occurs but occasionally people regret what they say.

This contextual ambiguity is highly fluid, often changing from generation to generation.  It is impossible to know how the next generation will hint at their sexual activities in public speech or whether the current linguo will still be relevant. Consider that most of the puns in Shakespeare’s comedies are meaningless to speakers of modern English without explanations. One generation’s giggle is another one’s yawn and vice versa. Still, in some way, sex is lying somewhere in the background of all language.

Ode to the Mediterranean diet - Portion, proportion and price

                                           (Eggplant and tahina as prepared by my wife)

I just returned from a three-week trip to the United States. I was happy to return to my bed, cats, computers and, no less importantly, my diet.  It was not that I ate badly on my trip.  I ate solid American food, fancy French food, tasty Asian food and good basic Mexican food, to name a few.  I certainly did not go hungry.  Still, it is a relief to go back to my Mediterranean diet, filed with lots of vegetables in dishes and salads, a reasonable amount of protein, fresh fruit and nuts.

At each of the restaurant types I dined in, something seemed off.  Typical American fare, such as deli sandwiches, pancakes and American breakfast, is tasty and filling but the portions are simply too big.  The feeling after the meal borders and even sometimes crosses over to heaviness. While it is possible to order smaller portions or split dishes, the eyes are much bigger than the stomach.  The food on the plate only turns out to be too much when after you have finished eating it. I really can live without American food.

I also enjoyed several Asian restaurants.  I relish curries and spicy food. The issue is the matter of proportion.  Hot is as hot feels. Everybody has a different comfort zone but a restaurant can only cater to it to a limited degree. I always felt that I wanted it a bit hotter or milder. Having eaten Chinese food in China I understand that there simply is no single standard of spicing.  The process of trial and error is a long process. Also, the proportion of meat to vegetables is low by Western standards. That is probably good for the body but not always enough for the soul. For me, Asian food is a treat, not an everyday meal.

I also dined a several very fine French restaurants.  The portions were right for middle-aged persons and left me with a nice feeling of having eaten enough but not too much. The taste was rich with complicated sauces complementing the well-prepared meats.  The problem was that the price was rich also.  Comparing the price and the amount of food it purchased, something seemed off. While I was satisfied in terms of quantity and quality, the cost seemed exorbitant. French restaurants are an expensive diet.

Now I am back home with my eggplant, chopped vegetable salad, tahina, shakshuka, falafel, kabab and humus, not to mention lamb, chicken and fish.  The portions, even in restaurants, are sufficient but not exaggerated. The flavors are balanced.  If I want it hotter, I can add some sahug, a hot pepper condiment. The prices are quite reasonable by local income standards and more than reasonable for tourists. They say that absence makes the heart grow fonder.  I would say it also has the same effect on the taste buds and stomachs.