08 18th, 2008“Prose is architecture, not interior decoration, and the Baroque is over.” (Ernest Hemingway, Death in the Afternoon)
…for example, if you’re working with text originally written by a non-native speaker of the language.
I wanted to change the setting on a very simple (kosher) Samsung flip phone, so that instead of answering calls automatically when I open the phone, it will only answer when I press the “call” button to accept the call (this gives me a chance to see Caller ID first).
I knew the setting was available somewhere. Well, I looked and I looked. I hunted through every possible menu (there aren’t many on this phone).
In desperation, I got help from an Israeli colleague, who found the setting in just a couple of minutes. It wasn’t obvious. The function can be found in the “Extra Settings” in the “Settings” menu — fair enough. But the function itself is called “Active Folder”.
As a native English-speaker, I understood “Active Folder” to mean “a group of files or functionalities that are activated”, and therefore didn’t select that function even when I saw it during my original hunt.
My English-as-a-second-language colleague understood “Active Folder” correctly: “the function triggered by folding the phone is active”.
Things I packed today:
- cufflings (what my son uses to fasten his French cuffs)
- banging suit (what my daughter wears to the beach)
- o-ganki des (a toddler’s blankie)
- twenty white shirts, folded with great care and tension (note to self: make appointment for massage upon arrival)
- an entire rainbow of Crocs (red, brown, purple, green, pink, blue, white, and black)
Nine people. Eleven days. There’s very little floor visible in this house tonight. (Tread lightly on the duffle bags, please.)
Seen in Tokyo:
Suddenly, I’m not that thirsty.
I’ll have consult with a fluent friend to plan my order in advance next time. Or take a few lessons. How humiliating.
“Medical help is being given to the last-known surviving speaker of a minority language in Nepal. Soma Devi Dura, an 82-year-old living in western Nepal, is thought to be world’s sole speaker of Dura, a Tibeto-Burman minority language. Scholars want to preserve Nepal’s disappearing minority languages. The country has more than 100 tongues, several with fewer than 100 speakers each.”
[via InterWorld Radio News Bulletin, 16 Jan 2008]
A peice like that really gets me thinking about language in particular, and communication in general. The choice of what form of communication to use (gestural, vocal, body language/facial expression, email, SMS, IM, FaceBook message, FaceBook poke…).
What makes us incline towards using one communication means over another at any given point in time?
Factors include:
- Who we’re contacting
- Time of day (where we are / where the other party is)
- Technology / network available at the moment of communication (where we are / where the other party is)
- Cost of network time at the moment of communication (where we are / where the other party is)
- Desire for privacy / desire for publicity
- Shyness about opening a channel of communication
- Social implications of the communication channel
I’m sure there are others.
Personal related anecdotes:
- Only “old folks” use email. Kids use SMS.
- “Poking” someone on FaceBook when I’m not sure they’d want to be a friend, but might feel compelled to accept if they received an invitation.
- Wanting to kick someone under the table during a conversation, but refraining.
- Calculating which landline (or cell phone line) to use to call a relative in another country, based on calling plan rates.
- Trying to reassure a tense friend whose mother-tongue is Tagalog.
- A surprised daughter exclaiming, “Mommy! They all talk like we do!” in a supermarket in San Francisco.
- Delaying data downloads to the cell phone until accessing a WiFi network.
- Receiving an SOS email: “Are you up? Can I call you?”
- Being available to that friend in crisis when she can’t call anyone in her own country for help at 2.00am local time.
Back to our opening story…
What would it feel like if your native tongue were nearly extinct? What would it be like to live in a world where you always — always — had to speak in a foreign language to be understood? What kind of alienation would you feel?
My favorite books on language:
Some useful [?] terms, if you’re visiting Israel:
kochavit: lit.: little star; the asterisk/star key
sulamit: lit.: little ladder; the pound key
shtrudel: lit.: pastry roll; the @ symbol
jemsbond: lit.: James Bond; colloquially, an attache case
Have you got some favorite examples? I’d love to see them in the Comments!
The expression “All-in-One” is a bit out of place here. For that, you’d want Esperanto.
Splash screen language choices are English, German and Magyar.
I’m always pleased to see great ideas from unexpected directions. Ultimately: no direction should be unexpected. Assumptions as to who is “able” to execute and produce are often wrong, and nearly always damaging.
