Author: Melissa Mann

A Very Merry Unbirthday

Dear English-B Interpreter Friends,

(First, my letter to you to using words from Post #16)

I’ve been musing on birthdays and anniversaries and celebrations. My own birthdays have always triggered an odd sense of detachment and nervousness because the plethora of communication wishing me all the best (though heartfelt) simply overwhelms me. On the other hand, I have always relished the actual celebration (the party, the drinks, the dancing, the conversations, the laughter). My internal disconnect: I get skittish about calls and cards and gifts but I truly enjoy the parties and commemorative dinners I occasionally host.

A recent celebration (someone else’s, thankfully, where all I had to do was show up and be happy, a perfect situation indeed), prompted me to rack my brain (presumably the neurons that had not been drowned in the prior evening’s libations) for a logical explanation for this seeming contradiction within. I concluded that relentless communication has left me (and doubtless many of you) flustered – those day-in, day-out phone calls, voice mails, e-mails, e-cards, social-media messages, text messages that go endlessly, endlessly, endlessly on. As well intended as birthday tidings may be, I now understand that the fact that they come in diluvial fashion is what befuddles the type-A, clear-out-the-inbox, check-off-the-to-list side of me. But the birthdays themselves, like anniversaries, holidays and all celebrations, are such a magnificent way to mark the passage of time.  So I also understand that it is the genuine rejoicing that courts the type-B, sensorial, creative, happy-go-lucky, let-go-and-feel-the-music side of me.
As I sit here ironing out (read: more e-mails and phone calls) end-of-the-year travel plans (which include a number of birthdays in the extended family, holidays, rituals both religious and secular, and welcoming the new calendar year), these perceptions of requirements versus revelry seem piercingly relevant. And bowing to optimism, I am quite content thinking on the essence of festivities, hoping I can learn to better accept the mundane, and trusting that the grandeur of time, ritual and celebration ultimately prevails.

Happy words,
Melissa

*** To celebrate the life of Oliver Sachs, who passed away yesterday and who recently published a short piece on ritual, the Sabbath, and his time and place for ritual and for rest, here are five words (in befitting context) to bring into the booth:
DOFF, TO
ATTENUATED
DOGGEDLY
TRUMP, TO
WISTFULNESS

Dear English-B Interpreter Friends,

(First, my letter to you to using words from Post #15)

This post is a digression from my normal palaver cum personal self-mocking anecdote. Plus, the hyperlinks this week point to enough material to tide us over to the next post.

I’ve read more than my share of unsettling articles this week: on the demise of the US Pacific Northwest, on a conceivably impish head of state, on our uncanny need to pontificate on the inherent evils of technology in an attempt to gloss over our own social and psychological shortcomings, and so on. But I was most struck by one on downtrodden climate scientists, specifically on how they currently suffer from collective depression partially because we (read: armchair environmentalists) ponderously shuffle our feet in the face of their glaring doomsday data. At the risk of my despondent remarks being heralded as facetious, I’ll let the article speak for itself.

Happy words,
Melissa

*** FIVE WORDS (IN CONTEXT) TO BRING INTO THE BOOTH ***
SKITTISH
DETACHMENT
RELENTLESS
RACK (verb)
BEFUDDLEMENT
— all as used in the article “When the End of Human Civilization Is Your Day Job“

Dear English-B Interpreter Friends,

(First, my letter to you to using words from Post #14 while en route back to Brazil after the harrowing experience of nearly getting barred from embarking on my flight back because of confusing Brazilian visa regulations, the birdbrained people who seemed to be assigned en masse to my (and only my) departure gate and a dearth of Portuguese speakers or airline employees willing to use minimal brain power to Google translate my visa-status certificate (and now that I’ve let off steam…))

Among my million and one interests, I have a fascination for the subtleties of communication strategies (clearly sadly wanting at gate C108 with the lone exception of a department head who resolved the issue at the very last minute), for all things Norwegian, and for geopolitics (just to dispel any glimmer of hope that I am normal). And because the heavens seem to smile down on me whenever I pull out a magazine while on an airplane (although maybe this time I just got a dose of divine pity after nearly having to unwillingly spend a night on the threadbare airport chairs while the nitwits confirmed my right to fly back to Brazil), I hit upon an intriguing article that managed to engagingly address all three topics at once: the Norwegian-led UN peacekeeping mission in Cyprus, considered either a wild success or a total failure depending on how one analyzes current political communication. Plus, as a bonus for those who enjoy descriptive fiction over fact-filled political science, the author shows coruscating creativity in describing the scattered relics in the buffer zone that hark back to the decades leading up to and including the war.

The gist of the article: the UN’s longest-running peace-keeping mission has famously been doing pretty much nothing all day long for 40 years on the border between the Republic of Cyprus and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. The underlying question: is this good or bad? The 850+ UN soldiers have become a muted backdrop to the island, so much so that there are hardly any talks ever to devolve control to the Cypriots or somehow come to some solution that would eschew the need for a peacekeeping force that boringly busies itself mediating between soldiers on each side whose main transgression is feeding stray dogs inside the restricted buffer zone. I found the quote by the Norwegian Major General of the mission, when describing the role of her country, a tragicomic metaphor for the pacifically divisive (or divisively pacific) reality of both Cyprus and the peacekeeping mission today: “We are a small country and we don’t have an agenda. We understand we have to learn another language to communicate.  The UN has always been at the back of Norwegians’ heads. We had the first Secretary-General and there was a reason for that. We are not a threat to anyone; we stopped attacking people after the Vikings. I think we are just straightforward. Sometimes too straightforward.” Which begs the communication question: in the face of disagreement, is it better to call in an even-tempered middleman to calmly keep fighting at bay like a just parent sternly and lovingly putting quarreling siblings at opposite ends of the room, or is it better to seek a solution where there is ultimately no need for the mediator and the two sides are forced to hash it out? History, classic logic (and today’s experience of holding myself back from going all out Viking on the moronic airline personnel) show that both approaches have their many merits and equally as many drawbacks.

Happy words,
Melissa

*** FIVE WORDS (IN CONTEXT) TO BRING INTO THE BOOTH ***
FACETIOUS
ARMCHAIR (adjective)
PONDEROUS
IMPISH
PONTIFICATE (verb)
— all as used in the short (i.e., there is no excuse not to click and read), insightful blog post on diplomacy  “What Comes First: War or Diplomacy?“

Dear English-B Interpreter Friends,

(First, my letter to you to using words from Post #13)

I am reading the New York Times Magazine while squeezed in the middle seat of an airplane between a Brazilian and an Italian as a flight attendant uncreatively drones on about air-travel protocol in French and English and a middle-aged couple in front quietly deliberates in what I guess to be Korean about where to store the lady’s handbag: an intriguing assemblage of anonymous globetrotters so unassumingly and perfectly representative our this last half century. As the captain stultifies passengers with weather conditions in the Canadian plains, I flip open the magazine to drown out the monotony and the buzz. “Is Translation an Art or Math Problem” by Gideon Lewis-Kraus contends that Google’s mission is arguably to make language superfluous. The word lover, language nerd and avid reader in me feels the conspicuous vein in my neck protrude. The initial paragraphs of the article are treading rather carelessly on my sacred translator ground, and I, now visibly nervous, imagine I am about to read yet another auger of the death of my profession swathed in wistful pity. But I plow on.

And thankfully too. Because the article does not ultimately portend the demise of this millennial profession. Nor does not it claim some covert Google agenda to usurp the need for human translators per se. In fact, without over-romanticizing or over-criticizing, it astutely argues in favor of both man and machine as necessary contenders for delivering words from one language into another by acknowledging that the purpose of each of these two forms of translation is patently separate: machines, where time must essentially trump contextual aims; humans, where subtle, sympathetic purpose ranks foremost. And it most notably argues the need for both types of translation working in tandem. To the sentimentalists who cry out that machine translation is mere snake oil prettily packaged for an undiscerning, fast-paced market, it is time we recognize the countless benefits that rapidly improving, lightening-fast, computer-coded rendering affords humanity. To the staunch defenders of the supremacy of ones, zeros and blurred lines between science fiction and reality, we cannot but acquiesce to the emotionless limitations of code and to our unique human skill of imbuing words with empathetic and historical purpose that will fall forever outside the the realm of computed bits.

Granted, you already implicitly understand this fine balance, sensitively pondering these reflections in English as you call upon Google Translate for the occasional unfamiliar term.

Happy words,
Melissa

*** FIVE WORDS (IN CONTEXT) TO BRING INTO THE BOOTH ***
DEVOLVE
ESCHEW
HARK
CORUSCATING
THREADBARE
— all as used in the article “Is Translation an Art or a Math Problem?”

Dear English-B Interpreter Friends,

(First, my letter to you to using words from Post #12)

Someone told me this week that I pepper my generally high-tension approach to life with isolated moments of extreme relaxation. She was angling for me to object (which would have been proof enough of her point). But I just laughed, accepted the observation with a sanguine nod and asserted that, a few weeks shy of my 37th birthday, I was not likely to change. That I’d honed this “work hard, play hard” attitude to a T.

In all fairness, playing hard really means anything I do that is in full opposition to my one-track-minded way of working (which, on account of how I sway when I study or how I voluntarily subject myself to working in a coffin-like interpreting booth, could probably be tagged as some neurodevelopmental disorder on the obsessive-compulsive spectrum). I love my crazy job, but I’d snap if it weren’t for the regular breaks I take for unwinding. Unlike my very rigid and rooted work featuring words, newspapers, books, radio and thinking, thinking, thinking, my time off is imbued with a sense of the sublime and very little talking: hiking above the clouds, running over mountain trails and reaching out to clasp the rampant brush, walking across a bitingly cold ocean of white crystals on a salt marsh, crewing an ultra marathon, feeding my sprightly little nephew his bottle, listening to a great cello player while blocking out everything else, feeling the earth pulse at a music festival, and so on.

To this person’s astute observation, I asserted that I was not likely to change, but I walked away thinking just why I shouldn’t. What actually holds me (or anyone) back from pursuing the opposite: unguarded relaxation interrupted with only occasional strain?

And with that thought, I bring you this week’s big booth words, all culled from a single article entitled “What would you pay to be happy?”

Happy words,
Melissa

*** FIVE WORDS (IN CONTEXT) TO BRING INTO THE BOOTH ***
SWATHE
SNAKE OIL
CONTEND
ASSEMBLAGE
COVERT
— all as used in the article “What would you pay to be happy?“

Dear English-B Interpreter Friends,

(First, my letter to you to using words from Post #11)

My building complex includes a fenced-off area for dog and cat owners to bring their furry friends out to stretch and run unimpeded, and the responsible humans who frequent this little area, in turn, have created a private WhatsApp®  group to discuss issues pertinent to condominium life with our feline and canine family members. Yesterday, after a staggering number of rabid texts remanding the group’s members to rally for impeachment of Brazil’s president, I sent a message kindly and diplomatically asking that posts in our virtual community be limited to the specific purpose of the group, namely discussing common concerns regarding our four-legged friends. Immediately thereafter I was sent a reproachful message informing me “that is why Brazil is as shitty [sic] as it is.” While I was strangely amused and almost impressed by the fact that one of my (clearly well-read) neighbors had ascribed me (a non-voting foreigner) such omniscience as to have magically turned an entire country to excrement, I opted for a more cavalierresponse: none. I had been quite self-assured in my tactful and well-founded request in the first place and did not need to dignify rogue discourtesy with pushback.

Brazil is astir in politicking right now (fascinating for this international-relations buff), and so I wish all of my Brazilian friends — wherever you find yourself on the political spectrum — informed and active participation in your country’s development, just preferably devoid of rude epithets to colleagues and leaders alike.

Happy words,
Melissa

*** FIVE WORDS (FROM A ZOOLOGY CONTEXT) TO BRING INTO THE BOOTH ***HONE
* As used in the body of this article on an experiment involving implanting memories into mice.
IMBUE
* As used in this personal piece about adopting a psychologically troubled dog.
ANGLE (verb)
* As used in body of this extremely insightful feature article about  famed primatologist Jane Goodall.
SPRITELY
* As used in the body of this article on the Kyrgyz donkey-meat scandal (seriously).
RAMPANT
* As used in the photo caption under the last photo in this series of strange newly discovered creatures.

Dear English-B Interpreter Friends,

(First, my letter to you to using words from Post #10)

Big Booth Words Is Watching You!

Late last year, I interpreted at an event on geographic information systems. The developers and speakers were so enthusiastic about ascertaining and exploring ways to utilize the terabytes upon terabytes of information we can now gather that they all but sang cult-like paeans to big data from the stage. At the event, everything sounded marvelous: using massive data sets to combat crime, improve education, plan agricultural strategies for the 21^st century, etc. Of course, recent scandals show us how a more tendentious use of this trove of information may cause slight friction, to say the least (Assange, Snowden, Greenwald, etc.).

Which brings me to what dirty secrets I drudged up about every one of my readers this week (cue evil laugh). Until recently, you were all reading these digests in blissful anonymity, but the new online program to which I switched to overcome the managerial quandary caused by trying to misuse Apple mail as a digest manager offered me some unexpected Easter eggs. On a Big-Brotheresque leveI, I was surprised to find my new program individually lists who actually opened my e-mail (I can tell who actually seems to care), where (not e-mail specific) the digest is read (I can envy you readers who perused this digest in Alaska and India), and which specific links you individually click on (I can see your true preferences or even disinterest). Therefore, in case any of you care what I think, please feel free to deceitfully click on all the links henceforth and make me feel like my time is worth it.

But, like all data sets, as the ardent advocates at the referenced event showed rather successfully, mass information can (and should) be put to beneficial use. Joking aside, I choose to focus on the positive, and what the statistics truly emphasized was:

• that more of you opened the e-mail than industry average (therefore I have decided to continue sending out this digest);
• that practically none of you clicked on the video links (therefore I am not going to send video links this week and see if any of you object by sending me a personal e-mail);
• that only a precious few of you clicked on all links, and that many more clicked an average of 3-4 links (therefore I know how and to what extent my steadfastreaders use this digest for studying; I know others use it merely for quick, clever entertainment;  and I can also gauge which words are likely brand new); and
• that the most clicked links were about Brazilian corruption and US involvement in the Ukraine imbroglio, and not the article about Jews, money and Chinese perceptions, which I personally thought was the freshest perspective on the last list (therefore a new experiment of sending out only links based on a specific theme should help me find the pattern here; do my readers click for content or for the specific word being highlighting?).

I have more interesting things to do than set up an online dragnet to systematically figure out who reads what and when, but occasionally studying the overarching database will give me the feedback I need to tweak these digests to maximum effectiveness.

Data is great. It all depends on how it’s used.

Happy words,
Melissa

*** FIVE WORDS (IN BIG-DATA CONTEXT) TO BRING INTO THE BOOTH ***
STAGGERING
* As used in the body of this very thorough Ars Technica article breaking down the idiotic term of, but gorgeous concept behind, big data.
REMAND
* As used in the body of this CNN post on the status of Julian Assange in the Ecuadorian embassy in London to avoid extradition to Sweden.
CAVALIER
* As used in this body of The Economist’s review of Acadamy-winning The Imitation Game, which beautifully portrays Alan Turing’s code-breaking work during WII and development of the early computer.
PUSHBACK
* As used in the body of The Guardian’s article on Greenwald, Snowden, Dotcom and Assange’s virtual debate last year.
ROGUE
* As used in the title of this short NYT piece on the security vulnerability of the healthcare industry.

Dear English-B Interpreter Friends,

(First, my letter to you to using words from Post #9)

Ah February! The poor, little month that seemed to get the short end of the stick when the Romans were fiddling around with the calendar. I was reading up on the origins of this particular month (because my love of arcane trivia knows no bounds) and discovered that the name comes from a Roman festival of ritual purification (Februa), which traditionally occurred between the 13th and the 15th of the month. But, let not the poetic appeal of ceremonial cleansing delude; purification is none other an overt admission of having just engaged in inevitably impure activities. Just as the purported impurities of the Saturnalia festivities preceded the Roman’s soul-scrubbing Februa, what precedes our modern-day festival of ritual purification (that is, Ash Wednesday / Lent) is none other than the ubiquitous, promiscuous, frivolous, uproarious, morally decadent masquerade we now call Carnival.

I happen to be writing this digest with a cold beer in hand as a little nod to the current nationwide carefree attitude while I actually work this Monday. For many years, I would spend Friday to Carnival Tuesday out on streets, occasionally getting mildly chastised for letting myself get too carried away with the festivities. In recent years, however, I’ve been less inclined to take Brazil’s Carnival customs much to heart, mostly staying quietly indoors, though I’ve ironically been called culturally callous for not sufficiently embracing my Carnival spirit. This year, however, I was genuinely desirous of participating in something social. So, I headed out Saturday to follow around a parade float with marchinha-singing revellers in a bloco whose name loosely translates to Danny the Donkey (Jegue Gerso), dancing incessantly in the street until 3 a.m. And after I finish this digest, I may yet go out to dance and enjoy myself alongside a percussion-based Carnival bloco that calls itself Termite Mound (Cupinzeiro).

Saturday night, as I was listening to the music and singing and getting progressively more covered in paper confetti, I felt giddy. Maybe it was because it had been a while since I’d taken the mass Carnival spirit to heart. Maybe it was because I was amusedly watching two friends who had never experienced Brazilian Carnaval (a man from Portugal and a woman from Syria) joyously partake in the celebration. Maybe it was because watching the motley crew of costumed people in the college suburb of Barao Geraldo was entertainment in and of itself. Or maybe because I currently seem to be going through a stage where I’m finding myself newly smitten with all things Brazilian. Who knows (maybe overanalysing my contentment it is just a moot exercise), but I was (and am) truly happy enjoying this year’s Carnival.

Wishing you all a fun-filled final day of partying.

Happy words,
Melissa

*** FIVE WORDS (IN CONTEXT) TO BRING INTO THE BOOTH ***

ASCERTAIN
* As used in the title of this medical summary about measuring doctor’s fatigue through analysis of their eye movements (#medicine)
*  As a Portugues-to-English interpreting opportunity from this interview about the applications of big data. (#IT)
ref. “Esses insights… trazem cenários mais apurados?” (2:04) – Can we better ascertain prospects/scenarios with these insights?
STEADFAST
* As used in the body of this article on why Jews are historically good at finance, and why the Chinese admire them for it (#finance; #religion)
*  As a Spanish-to-English interpreting opportunity on the widespread availability of organic food in Cuba (#agriculture; #policy)