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By Kellnerin (Sat Sep 01, 2007 at 03:56:12 PM EST) (all tags)
This sort of thing used to amuse me, but ever since I started writing documentation that gets translated, that amusement is tinged with a creeping sense of uneasiness.

SO, IT'S BEEN A GOOD couple of weeks. I spend a chunk of most Sunday afternoons participating in a metaphorical brunch with ana, toxicfur, and others, and a couple weeks ago this was combined with a real-world brunch (mmmm, eggs and smoked salmon) at the anafur domicile. It's a house with some unusual internal geometry, which I'd read descriptions of but never quite been able to visualize. Now I can.

Last weekend D and I headed out to iGrrrl's gig. It's been far too long since we've seen them play. The venue was nice enough -- the food was excellent -- but, D and I decided, they have an extra wall in the middle of the place that really shouldn't be there.

We'd have liked to have stayed longer, but D had gotten up at 5:00 that morning to participate in the 10th Anniversary Great Portage. What is the Great Portage? It is an event, organized by one of D's oldest friends, in which several able-bodied but possibly feeble-minded people carry an aluminum canoe up Mt. Monadnock. Anyway, D had missed out on the previous portages, so was determined to make this one. The park ranger saw them at one point, recognized our friend, and stopped the group. They thought they were going to be yelled at for dragging a canoe around, but instead the ranger pulled out the official guide to Mt. Monadnock and showed them a photo from a previous portage that made it into the book. Apparently the ranger's been trying to find our friend ever since to show him the picture.

Also, at the gig, we got to see toxicfur's latest softball injuries. Anyway: next time, totally going to stay later.


SO, WHERE'S THE WFC voting story? I should talk, since how much do I suck for not having posted anything about the WFC Book in a long time? I suck a lot, is how much. I actually don't have a whole lot left to do, is the stupid part. Sometimes gainful employment is so inconvenient.

I'm going to post the layout for this sucker by the end of the month, or die trying.


IN OTHER WRITING-RELATED NEWS, I used the word leverage as a verb the other day. It was in this sort of overview-y section of something I was writing at work, and it just sort of slipped out through my fingertips. I finished the paragraph, and looked at it. At first I was slightly proud of how it seemed to flow. Then (an uncomfortably long time later), I came to my senses as that phrase was tumbling around in my head and I thought, Look at yourself! You just used leverage as a verb!

And then it became like one of those awful arguments you can find yourself in, where something horribly hurtful comes out of your mouth before you can think, and it can never be unsaid. Oh, the word can be un-typed, replaced with something else and no one would be the wiser, but I would know. I have let myself down and I can't hide the fact from my own disapproving self that I wrote it, and was even a little pleased with it for a while -- no more than I can hide my disappointment in my over-eager, gee-whiz-they're-paying-me-to-write-this-stuff self.

Maybe I just need to schedule some time to do an editorial review of my doc and gently suggest to myself that I find another way to phrase that. That would probably be the most diplomatic way to handle the situation.

< After you be eight | BBC White season: 'Rivers of Blood' >

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Ether Lord | 27 comments (27 topical, 0 hidden) | Trackback
That first 'leverage (v)' was free... by toxicfur (2.00 / 0) #1 Sat Sep 01, 2007 at 06:07:07 PM EST
...just to get you hooked. I actually use 'leverage' as a verb semi-regularly in the writing I do. It does flow nicely, and, well, it's one of those buzzwords that funding agencies use in their requests for proposals, so it's probably something I should repeat back to them.

It was really nice having you over for brunch. We should do something like that again - and next time,  we should schedule it for something that D would be interested in.
-----
If you don't get a Bonnie, my universe will not make sense. --blixco


there's no such thing as a free verb by Kellnerin (2.00 / 0) #3 Sat Sep 01, 2007 at 07:16:26 PM EST
I guess I'll come to terms with having used it; I just feel like I've crossed a threshold or something.

And yes, let's do more random brunches and things -- D would very much like to join next time. Although the very next time should probably be us having you guys over here in Outer Sasquatchia. We'll also make sure you're in on the next portage, if there's another.

--
"If a tree is impetuous in the woods, does it make a sound?" -- aethucyn
[ Parent ]

We'd love to come over... by toxicfur (4.00 / 1) #6 Sun Sep 02, 2007 at 08:41:55 AM EST
or have you guys here again. And I'd definitely like to be on the next portage, if there is one. I haven't been canoeing in eons (on water or on land), and I kind of miss it.
-----
If you don't get a Bonnie, my universe will not make sense. --blixco
[ Parent ]

Just a friendly warning by ad hoc (4.00 / 1) #2 Sat Sep 01, 2007 at 06:40:55 PM EST
if you ever use "re-architect", I will claim never to have known you. And that decision that will not be re-visited.
--



but what about ... by Kellnerin (2.00 / 0) #4 Sat Sep 01, 2007 at 07:20:42 PM EST
architecting something for the first time? I really hope I won't have the occasion to use either. Ten years in editorial has given me a pretty good vocabulary to describe the act of re-doing something that was done once before, without having to verb any more words.

--
"If a tree is impetuous in the woods, does it make a sound?" -- aethucyn
[ Parent ]

that seems like standard programmerspeak by aphrael (2.00 / 0) #11 Mon Sep 03, 2007 at 01:24:40 AM EST
to me at least.

If television is a babysitter, the internet is a drunk librarian who won't shut up.
[ Parent ]

is it ... by Kellnerin (4.00 / 1) #13 Mon Sep 03, 2007 at 08:57:39 AM EST
really something you have occasion to say that often? If so, I'm impressed. It's my understanding that a company will generally implement something, and then duct tape additional functionality and whatnot on to that core ad infinitum, rather than revisit those initial decisions which may or may not scale. Or is it more often in the context of, "Yeah, but what you're talking about would require us to re-architect the whole thing. Screw that."

Anyway, though I'd like to be able to speak with programmers in their language (which is why "leverage" bothers me -- it makes me feel like I'm a step closer to speaking to marketers in their own language, which I'm not remotely interested in), in general I think I'd like to speak, you know, English. (I mean, jargon has its use; I just don't like to see jargon creep.)

--
"If a tree is impetuous in the woods, does it make a sound?" -- aethucyn
[ Parent ]

often, no. by aphrael (2.00 / 0) #20 Mon Sep 03, 2007 at 08:40:14 PM EST
rearchitecting is something that you rarely get to do -- but everyone understands the concept, and it's really the best word for the concept.

I agree that jargon creep is bad, and it drives me batty how both politics and law will use normal english words to mean something different than how normal english bothers it; but in this case, I think it's reasonable.

If television is a babysitter, the internet is a drunk librarian who won't shut up.
[ Parent ]

redesign? by ana (4.00 / 1) #21 Mon Sep 03, 2007 at 08:57:23 PM EST
I mean, it's what architects do, design stuff.

Power up your flaming yo-yos already! --StackyMcRacky
[ Parent ]

i think by aphrael (4.00 / 1) #22 Mon Sep 03, 2007 at 09:11:12 PM EST
that would mean 'change the look and feel', not 'change the internal architecture'.


If television is a babysitter, the internet is a drunk librarian who won't shut up.
[ Parent ]

re- by Kellnerin (2.00 / 0) #25 Tue Sep 04, 2007 at 08:30:29 PM EST
That's interesting ... the dev team I'm currently working with is the one in charge of writing the user interfaces, so it has look-and-feel issues to deal with, along with underlying architecture.

When we talk about changing the appearance of the app, we talk of a coming "visual refresh" that's planned for the next major release, or "skinning" a new app that we're just about to finish, or "branding" something that's got a default appearance that we want to look better. Or we talk about being able to "theme" something so it matches the look-and-feel of something else. Sure, these all have slightly different meanings, but they all relate to look-and-feel.

If it's something that doesn't happen very often, what's wrong with "change the architecture"? In editing, there's a whole vocabularly of revising, rewriting, reworking, recasting, re-organize ... because that's something that happens all the time. In programming, you can refactor (on a smaller scale) or re-implement (implementing is what you did the first time; presumably this time you do it differently, with major changes to the guts of what was there before). To "re-architect" suggests you "architected" it originally ... I mean, software architects do in fact do work up front, and then sometimes revisit those decisions, but as ana said, what they do in the first place is design the implementation, no? Or maybe I'm too much of a n00b to have heard people talking of "architecting."

Anyway ... not to bash people just for using the word; I just like to scrutinize words and let them tumble around in my head and swish them around my mouth before using them.

--
"If a tree is impetuous in the woods, does it make a sound?" -- aethucyn
[ Parent ]

I, for one, by Merekat (4.00 / 4) #5 Sun Sep 02, 2007 at 07:31:36 AM EST
welcome our fast ether lord...



Indeed. by yicky yacky (4.00 / 1) #7 Sun Sep 02, 2007 at 10:34:52 AM EST

Effecting change upon leveraging anomalies is, in totality, a superficiality solution, implemented exclusively for the perceptuators of best-in-class peers, with the option to amnesiate the originator being, unfortunately, unavailable at this time.

I still have issues with the use of 'code' as a verb, though, so am probably weird. I saw 'capacitate' used as a verb (to mean 'increase capacity') in a document the other day. It really wasn't pretty.

Great link.


----
Done.


"capacitate" by Kellnerin (4.00 / 1) #8 Sun Sep 02, 2007 at 11:02:08 AM EST
If I ever use that as a verb, I think a small portion of my brain will be forced to commit suicide in protest, causing me to be at least temporarily incapacitated.

--
"If a tree is impetuous in the woods, does it make a sound?" -- aethucyn
[ Parent ]

Would that be "win-win"? by mrgoat (4.00 / 1) #9 Sun Sep 02, 2007 at 11:19:56 PM EST

Years pass, things change, you end up living in Kansas. But the bag of dicks never leaves your side... - blixco
--top hat--
[ Parent ]

I think it's more like by Kellnerin (2.00 / 0) #12 Mon Sep 03, 2007 at 08:45:54 AM EST
the Law of Conservation of Capacity. Or maybe it's why it's a bad idea to put a Bag of Holding inside a Bag of Holding.

--
"If a tree is impetuous in the woods, does it make a sound?" -- aethucyn
[ Parent ]

Well, by mrgoat (4.00 / 2) #19 Mon Sep 03, 2007 at 05:18:17 PM EST
I guess you could always leverage your extradimensional spaces into a series of best-in-class, value added actionable items.

Then maybe utilize them, or something.

Years pass, things change, you end up living in Kansas. But the bag of dicks never leaves your side... - blixco
--top hat--
[ Parent ]

When I lived in Taipei, by muchagecko (4.00 / 1) #10 Sun Sep 02, 2007 at 11:37:59 PM EST
my ex worked at the World Trade Center as a executive translator. The President of the TWTC (Taipei World Trade Center) had my ex correct his 'Chinglish' correspondence into regular English business correspondence.

Just before we left Taipei, my ex found out that the stubborn fool president had ignored all the corrections and sent out his letters in 'chinglish'.

I always had fun finding ridiculous translations. One of the strangest was on the menu of a fancy restaurant in Taipei. Throughout the whole menu, instead of 'rice' was the word 'rape'.

"I'll take the pork fried rape, please."

"It means more if you have to earn it, even if it's by doing something as simple as eating a meal." Kellnerin


that's a great story by Kellnerin (4.00 / 1) #14 Mon Sep 03, 2007 at 09:01:29 AM EST
And mistranslations do amuse me still, partly on the same level as randomly generated spam that almost, but not quite, means something, and partly because it shows that in some intersection of the languages, those mistranslated concepts are close enough to mistake for one another, which is sort of fascinating. When you think about how ambiguous any language actually is, it's a miracle we actually communicate at all. Or maybe we never really manage to convey what we're trying to say, but because language sucks so much we think we are.

--
"If a tree is impetuous in the woods, does it make a sound?" -- aethucyn
[ Parent ]

Machine or Human? by johnny (4.00 / 2) #15 Mon Sep 03, 2007 at 10:08:37 AM EST
I got this one the other day.  There is, at the end of it, some obviously machine-generated random spam. But what of this?:


Princesses always hee-hawed at me and even youths did in the public comfort station!
Well, now I laugh at them, because I took Me - ga - Di k
for 5 months and now my prick is greatly preponderant than federal.

I'm guessing human. That is, a human-created sentence run through a word-substituting program. "Greatly preponderant than federal." Now that is sublime. Shades of Cheap Complex Devices!
... this is dreamworld after all... it isn't? Shit.
[ Parent ]

"greatly preponderant than federal." by Kellnerin (4.00 / 2) #16 Mon Sep 03, 2007 at 10:22:46 AM EST
I must meditate upon that for a while. Although I must say I've always found the public comfort station to be a terrible misnomer.

--
"If a tree is impetuous in the woods, does it make a sound?" -- aethucyn
[ Parent ]

My brain works in pictures, by muchagecko (2.00 / 0) #17 Mon Sep 03, 2007 at 03:44:42 PM EST
so speaking and writing has always been an unpleasant translation process.

You write so well - do you have words in your head?

Communication is such a struggle. Lately I've been watching my son tear apart language. I tell him to 'hit the road' and he runs outside and pounds the sidewalk. Aspergers gives him an unusual perspective on language.

"It means more if you have to earn it, even if it's by doing something as simple as eating a meal." Kellnerin
[ Parent ]

I don't know by Kellnerin (4.00 / 1) #18 Mon Sep 03, 2007 at 04:50:31 PM EST
where my words come from. I guess they must be tumbling around in my head, somewhere deep where I can't see, but I'm pretty sure I don't think in full sentences -- that seems like a pretty unnatural way for a brain to function, or at least pretty damn arbitrary.

I wish that I thought -- and could express myself -- in images, in melodies, in motion, or something that hits people somewhere in the chest or gut, rather than in the brain. If I do anything good with words, though, I think it's only because I've thought a lot about other people's words, how they do what they do, and maybe I'm just able to put together new puzzles out of other people's jigsaw pieces.

The way he looks at the world, your son must be one of the few sane people in the sea of humanity. I just hope he learns how to get along with the rest of us weirdos, and the bizarre way we're wired inside.

--
"If a tree is impetuous in the woods, does it make a sound?" -- aethucyn
[ Parent ]

tearing language apart by Merekat (4.00 / 2) #23 Tue Sep 04, 2007 at 02:51:11 AM EST
There's a phrase people sometimes use - eat your heart out. I still remember hearing that one for the first time as a child and thinking it was absolutely revolting. With an even more literal view, it becomes unusable.

[ Parent ]

It's pretty revolting. by muchagecko (4.00 / 1) #24 Tue Sep 04, 2007 at 09:31:48 AM EST
Which my son would make fun of also. "'Pretty and revolting' doesn't make sense, mom."

I think any heart imagery is a bit over the top: wearing your heart on your sleeve, bleeding heart, etc.

Although I haven't read the book, I always loved the title "Because it is Bitter and Because it is My Heart" by Joyce Carol Oates.


"It means more if you have to earn it, even if it's by doing something as simple as eating a meal." Kellnerin
[ Parent ]

It was good to see you by iGrrrl (2.00 / 0) #26 Wed Sep 05, 2007 at 10:52:17 PM EST
But I didn't get to talk with you at all.

The 15th? Same place? We'll try not to play everything too fast.

"I don't have time for martial law, I have to get to the gym!" zarathus


15th by Kellnerin (2.00 / 0) #27 Fri Sep 07, 2007 at 04:15:45 AM EST
We plan on it. And hope to bring some other people as well (like aethucyn, and my sister, who introduced me to the cajon), not that you seemed to have much trouble attracting a crowd.

And yeah, the one thing I didn't like about the venue was the long-and-narrowness of the space -- they really ought to do something about that wall between the bar and dining area. That, and the fact that when we got up from our seats they had a tendency to get poached. Maybe next time we'll try to get there earlier, so we can hang out a bit before you start to play.

--
"Late to the party" is the new "ahead of the curve" -- CRwM
[ Parent ]

Ether Lord | 27 comments (27 topical, 0 hidden) | Trackback

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