It's not?

 

No capisce?

Over the last couple of decades I have been pushed further into Grumpy Old Editor territory by the claims of political correctness, as it was once known. From the time I heard that African American would no longer be hyphenated but Irish-American would, I knew something was going on that was not dictated by logic or reason but by emotion and power. And indeed, from those humble beginnings have come no end of mischief. (I refer to the reader to my discussion of AFABs and AMABs in April, for example.)

One preference that irritates me for very practical purposes is this: that foreign words are no longer supposed to be set in italics when appearing in English text. You surely have seen passages like this in books in the past:

"Pardon me, Passepartout, have you seen the ticket office for the next stage of our journey?" 

"Alas, M. Fogg, la billetterie is shuttered for the day." 

In this pretend passage from the Verne work, we can gather what Phileas's helpful companion is saying and we have possibly learned some French vocabulary as well. But the insidious thing I have done with italicization is othered the French by making their language look like some weird -- well, foreign thing. And boy, won't the French be mad! I'm sure they never do anything like that to non-French words in their own text!

My point is, the italicization of a foreign word was never intended to make any non-English speakers feel like they didn't belong; it was intended to alert the reader that the word is in another tongue and help the clarity of the text. 

There are a number of foreign (I'm sticking to foreign over non-English) words that look the same as English words but are not -- and that's where clarity is threatened. Try this passage:

Mr. Van der Plotz ran up to me in quite a state of distress. "You shall not believe this!" he said. "I was minding a beer near the stream when suddenly an angel pulled at my shirt! I was slim enough to realize it was a roof! Fortunately, the man was aloud, and I was able to leap into the stream, escaping with no more than a bad, although my boots are coated in blubber. It quite upset my rooster!"   

From our example, it seems Mr. Van der Plotz has lost his senses. But let's identify which words were actually in his native Dutch by the use of italics.

Mr. Van der Plotz ran up to me in quite a state of distress. "You shall not believe this!" he said. "I was minding a beer near the stream when suddenly an angel pulled at my shirt! I was slim enough to realize it was a roof! Fortunately, the man was aloud, and I was able to leap into the stream, escaping with no more than a bad, although my boots are coated in blubber. It quite upset my rooster!"

"Oh!" I said. "You were watching a bear when a fishing rod snagged you? But you were smart and saw that it was an attempt at robbery! The man was elderly, so you were able to escape into the stream, suffering only an unexpected bath and muddy boots. And now your schedule is all upset."

"That's what I said!" he huffed. 

Yes, this is a silly example, but I hope it makes the point -- we treat foreign words as foreign in text because they are. We'd all like to be able to read any language, but that's not how life works. In most nations on Earth you will find only one or two common languages, and having limited language in a populace is useful for -- what's that word again? Yes, clarity. In a book, a reader needs a helpful indicator that a word has arrived from a language different from that in which the bulk of the text is written.

The war on precision and clarity in the supposed service of removing offense is itself offensive. This nonsense is brought to us from our universities, of course, paid for by tax dollars, outrageous tuitions, and rich people who should know better. If the intent was mainly to sow confusion, what more could the academicians do? The ivory tower has become a Tower of Babel.

Sharks, sharps, flats.

We played a lot of card games in my house when I was growing up, and if someone were to have a particularly good run my mother might call him a card shark. Interesting to note that was kind of a misnomer, except it wasn't. 

The term card shark is well-known, and was the name of a popular game show, but it doesn't make much sense. While the term shark is used for someone very driven at work (especially lawyers), we don't usually append the term shark to an activity to show someone is good at it. A good cook is not a kitchen shark; a great writer is not a word shark. But a pool shark is someone really good at pool, and for the same reason as the card shark -- it comes from cheating.  

We're gonna need a bigger pot.

In centuries past, sharks were not considered the magnificent beasts that the aquariums tell us they are now, but rather were considered parasites, ones that fed on others, as with loan sharks. So we might think that a card shark is either a mighty beast or a parasite that lives on smaller prey, but that may not be how the term originated. 

The word sharper as a noun likely came to the English language from the German schärfen, for sharpen, a way of calling someone a cheater, at least according to Grammarist. I suspect it may come from cheaters doctoring card decks by trimming or notching particular cards in a subtle way so they could tell what their opponents were holding. Oddly, I haven't seen that possible explanation online, but we know that deck doctoring is why new cards come in sealed boxes -- to avoid such tricks. 

Over time the card sharp, a kind of odd phrase, seems to have accidentally become card shark. But while the card sharp may be a cheat, a card shark is more often someone who's just really good at card games. (Different dictionaries, however, will define the terms differently.) It has been my experience in the real world that calling someone a card sharp is an accusation of cheating, but calling him a card shark is not. Whether the player is a card sharp or shark, though, he's not someone you want to go up against. Or at least, you'd best be a master at either method of play to go against him. 

Personally, that's why gambling has been the one vice that's had limited attraction for me -- there is no limit to the amount you can lose, and in a short time. What fun is that? I work too hard for my dough.

How to feel.

I was listening to a podcast by America's favorite priest, Fr. Mike Schmitz, but he was driving me nuts. Although the title of the video/podcast episode is "3 Reasons You Still Feel Bad After Confession," throughout it he talks about why one would "feel badly."

Grrr! Father, you need to get to English language confession, right NOW!

As George Phipps, the world's most physically fit English professor (played by Kirk Douglas) put it in the 1949 film A Letter to Three Wives, "You feel badly with your fingers." When your feelings are bad, you feel bad. Not badly.

This one catches a lot of people up, even smarties like Fr. Mike. But it's really simple. While it's true that bad can be used as an adverb, that's just another example of the dictionary throwing in the towel, like a modern DA saying people will commit crimes if they want, so we won't prosecute. 

Properly speaking, bad is an adjective. And badly is always an adverb. Adjectives modify nouns. Adverbs modify verbs. Adverbs can also modify adjectives or other adverbs, but there are none in this simple statement:

As we can see, bad modifies the noun: I. How do I feel? Bad. But when the word is the adverb badly, it's modifying the verb, feel. How is my tactile sense performing? Badly. (The verb performing being the modified word here.)

So I feel bad means I have bad feelings, while I feel badly means I am bad at feeling things, which is a statement one would seldom be obliged to make. 

Another reason this screws us up so often is that the reverse, I feel good, is usually treated as passable although it ought to be I feel well, well being the proper adverb. But Merriam-Webster muddies the waters, saying, among other foolish things: 

Adverbial good has been under attack from the schoolroom since the 19th century. Insistence on well rather than good has resulted in a split in connotation: well is standard, neutral, and colorless, while good is emotionally charged and emphatic. This makes good the adverb of choice in sports.

So... dumbbells who play sports should use good? Really, they make it seem like good is fine as an adverb if you're a moron. Not like dictionary editors, who are smarty-pantses who suck at sports. Why do we have to drag class and envy into everything?

Bottom line: If you want to sound smart, feel bad if something negative is up, feel well if something positive is up. The dictionary guys are going to look down on you either way, because that's the only joy they have, but you'll feel better. 

Guide to philololology.

My pronouns.

I was filling out some paperwork for a client, and right at the bottom I was asked to submit my pronouns, if I desired to do so. Naturally it took everything I had not to write Itt/Itt's.

I just left it blank. Let 'em guess.

People are very serious about this pronoun nonsense, but it's nothing to be serious about. It's as if we all got hyperfocused on ink colors, and refused to have anything to do with people who used blue ink, and would actually assault and try to ruin the lives of someone who used red. And God help us if we discovered a box of crayons. 

I think the only way to survive this silliness is to not play along. One of the advantages of being an adult is that you can sit at the kids' table for fun, but you can go to the grown-ups' table to dine. What we have now is a culture where everyone is pretending to be a bratty kid who won't stop playing when food is served. We are a culture that in effect is providing alcoholics with free booze so they don't get testy and ruin the party. We are supposed to play along in the new normal while the bratty kids keep Calvinballing the rules as fast as they can. 

In the end, it's Tic Tac Toe, or Global Thermonuclear War. The only way to win is not to play.

Dog job description.

What we have with our dogs in a failure to communicate. 

One of the ignored features of the movie Up is that the evil Charles Muntz invented one of the most ridiculously important devices of all time -- a machine that not only allows dogs to communicate in English without even vocalization, but apparently helps them to understand us completely and without training. Not only that, but the dogs are able to express their own thoughts to one another that way. It's completely mind-boggling. Nothing else in the movie comes close to that level of crazy, not Kevin the magical-ish bird or using sails to steer balloons or the fact that Muntz has lived almost a century and is still pretty spry. The idea that animals have human-enough brains to communicate with us via a proper device would have made Muntz the greatest biologist and inventor in history. So it's better not to think about it while watching the movie. 

"Hi there!"

As things are in the real world, dogs hardly understand us and very often don't even try, because it would interfere with their own interests. I don't know if they're being stubborn or willful, or just didn't read the job description properly.

WANTED: DOG

JOB DESCRIPTION

One (1) dog sought to fulfill position of: Dog. No experience necessary; will train. Duties include:

Obedience: Will listen to and obey a short list of commands

Exercise: Will encourage humans to get exercise with play, walks, etc.

Affection: Will provide affection to humans occasionally, as inspired (not mandatory at all times)

Protection: Will provide canine protection against wild animals and human assailants as needed (not a common occurrence)  

Toys and food to be provided to match your preferences (to be determined over time) and health needs. Note: No chewing on walls, floors, furniture, or rugs permitted. 

That's what I would have written as the want ad. What the dogs would have read, however, seems to have been an entirely different ad. 

WANTED: DOG

JOB DESCRIPTION

One (1) dog sought to fulfill position of: Dog. No experience necessary. Duties include:

Listening: Optional, with obedience as you feel like it

Exercise: Lying on the grass or the porch when inconvenient. Best time for play is in the wee hours, or whenever humans want to sleep.

Affection: To be determined by dog

Protection: Go insane at UPS man, other dogs; responding to threats close to home optional

All things within home may be chewed as determined by dog; anything may be a toy or food as required. Optional self-assigned jobs may include: eating poop, chewing baseboards, eating inedible objects, digging miscellaneous holes.

Sometimes I think those Muntz collars might be helpful to prevent these little misunderstandings. Other times I think I'm happier not knowing what my dogs are thinking. I'm always glad that the neighbors don't know what my dogs are thinking. It would lead to fistfights or at least embarrassment. 

Space make deaf.

A friend of mine posted this from Beyond Fest, and it really is a gem. 

If the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences had any real sense or taste, they would indeed enshrine this film depiction in their Academy Museum.

I showed it to my wife, and she said, "Google Translate would do a better job than this!"

That, of course, got me to thinking: Would it? Let's find out! 

Here in the depiction of the 1979 horror-SF classic Alien from IMDb, with tagline added: 

In the distant future, the crew of the commercial spaceship Nostromo are on their way home when they pick up a distress call from a distant moon. The crew are under obligation to investigate and the spaceship descends on the moon afterwards. After a rough landing, three crew members leave the spaceship to explore the area on the moon. At the same time as they discover a hive colony of some unknown creature, the ship's computer deciphers the message to be a warning, not a distress call. When one of the eggs is disturbed, the crew realizes that they are not alone on the spaceship and they must deal with the consequences. In space, no one can hear you scream.

 Now we'll put it into Google Translate and turn it into Chinese.

在遙遠的未來，商業宇宙飛船 Nostromo 的船員們在回家的路上接到了來自遙遠月球的求救信號。機組人員有義務進行調查，隨後飛船降落在月球上。粗略著陸後，三名機組人員離開宇宙飛船去探索月球區域。在他們發現一些未知生物的蜂巢群的同時，船上的計算機將消息解讀為警告，而不是求救信號。當其中一個蛋受到干擾時，機組人員意識到他們在宇宙飛船上並不孤單，他們必須處理後果。在太空中，沒有人能聽到你的尖叫聲。

So far, so good. Now we'll turn it back into English and see how it looks. 

In the distant future, the crew of the commercial spacecraft Nostromo receives a distress call from the distant moon on their way home. The crew was obliged to investigate, and the spacecraft landed on the moon. After a rough landing, the three crew members left the spacecraft to explore the lunar region. While they spot a hive of unknown creatures, the ship's computer interprets the message as a warning, not a distress signal. When one of the eggs is disturbed, the crew realizes they are not alone on the spacecraft and they have to deal with the consequences. In space, no one can hear your scream.

That's terrific. A couple of small changes but no problem at all understanding it. Nothing laughable. Is Google really that good? Or is it just really deeply in love with China? 

Let's try the translation with another language, like say Kurdish. 

Di paşerojeke dûr de, ekîba keştiya fezayê ya bazirganî Nostromo li ser rêya malê ne dema ku ji heyvek dûr bangek tengahiyê digirin. Ekîb mecbûr in ku lêkolîn bikin û keştiya fezayê paşê dakeve ser heyvê. Piştî daketineke dijwar, sê endamên ekîban ji keştiya fezayê derdikevin da ku li herêmê li ser heyvê bigerin. Di heman demê de gava ku ew koloniyek hingiv a hin mexlûqên nenas kifş dikin, komputera keştiyê peyamê deşîfre dike ku bibe hişyariyek, ne banga tengahiyê. Dema ku yek ji hêkan teng dibe, ekîb fam dike ku ew li keştiya fezayê ne bi tenê ne û divê ew bi encaman re mijûl bibin. Li fezayê, kes nikare qîrîna te bibihîze.

And back into English: 

In the distant future, the crew of the commercial spaceship Nostromo are on their way home when they receive a distress call from a distant moon. The crew has to investigate and the spacecraft will then land on the moon. After a rough landing, three crew members leave the spaceship to explore the area on the moon. Also when they discover a bee colony of some unknown creature, the ship's computer decodes the message to be a warning, not a distress call. When one of the eggs goes awry, the crew realizes they are not alone on the spaceship and must deal with the consequences. In space, no one can hear you scream.

Looks darn good! What if we try it in Chinese with a slightly lesser known work, say the description of my book, Larry and the Mascots?

When Larry gets thrown from the roof of his dormitory, little does he realize that his troubles are just beginning. Surviving this encounter due to the help of an advertising character—Whitewall, a pitchman for tires who is actually made of tires—Larry discovers that a group of advertising mascots have come to life. There’s Mitts, a flying oven mitt; Captain Freshy, a homicidal pirate who sells canned tuna; Sweety the Sugar Fairy, who glazes children’s cereal; Mushy MacClown, a sad clown on packages of marshmallows; and others—some of whom are up to something sinister. Who are they? What do they want? And why did one of them steal his crummy laptop? What Larry discovers is a conspiracy that springs from the actions of one of the school’s greatest patrons—one that ultimately threatens the lives of the students on campus, and perhaps even the entire nation. Larry and the Mascots is an intriguing adventure, full of action, heart, interesting characters, and cartoon characters, and is part of a complete breakfast.

We'll run it back and forth through the Chinese translation and then:

Little did he realize that his troubles had only just begun when Larry was thrown from the dormitory roof. Surviving with the help of advertising character Whitewall, a salesman for tires that are actually made of tires, Larry discovers a group of advertising mascots have come to life. There are gloves, flying oven mitts; Captain Freshy, a murderous pirate who sells canned tuna; Sugar Fairy Sweetheart glazed on children's cereal; Mushy MacClown, the sad clown on marshmallow wrappers; and others -- some of whom are making some sinister things. who are they? What do they want? Why did one of them steal his tattered laptop? The conspiracy uncovered by Larry stems from the actions of one of the school's biggest patrons -- ultimately threatening the lives of students on campus, and possibly an entire nation. Larry and the Mascot is a fun adventure full of action, heart, funny characters and cartoon characters that is part of a complete breakfast.

I mean, it's not awful. A little confusing, but roughly understandable. "Tattered laptop" is amusing. But a far cry from that Hong Kong description of Alien.

So what have we learned? That Google Translate has gotten scary good, and that movie pirates ought to use it rather than rely on their cousin who claims he speaks English unto like native total.