Swimming terminology

Swimmers also use everyday words in special ways or with special connotations. Specialist terminology: it's everywhere! Here are just a few links:

• Swim Smooth's illustrated glossary of swimming terms.
• US swimming glossary.
• Dictionnaire de la natation.
• 10 words that have a completely different meaning to swimmers by S6 classified disabled swimmer Claire Forrest.

Portuguese age-group co-champions Steve Dyson and Tony Bessone Basto

DID, Cheap Bulk Translations

From DID, FRI OCT 31, 2014, under the subheading Cheap Bulk Translation:

• DARPA wants to hear from organizations who can help lower the cost of automating the translation of less common languages. The fictional Klingon is available through Google and Bing, but many of the earth's 7,000+ languages are not, which by itself is a statement about Western priorities. DARPA shook their infamous acronym generator until it spat out Low Resource Languages for Emergent Incidents (LORELEI). Here's the Broad Agency Announcement [FBO], there's a Proposer's Day on November 13 in Arlington, VA.
• Since Western countries, from the US to Sweden [The Local], cannot be bothered to properly handle visas for Afghan translators threatened by the Taliban, let's hope DARPA figures LORELEI out by the next conflict in faraway places. This gets even the reliably liberal British comedian John Oliver righteously angry [video] at the US government.

Euronaval notes, #1

Just back from a week at the Euronaval naval defence show in Paris. Here are some notes and observations of passing relevance (or note) to this blog.

• English-language terms of note (and listed for more detailed analysis on this blog) include:

• autonomy & autonomous

• DCNS's 'autonomy boosting sections' (also the video here) is a good example of the problem posed by the word 'autonomy'.

• mine warfare & MCM. See my post here.

• UAV, UAS, RPCA and a host of related terms and acronyms. See my post here.

Interesting, for a technical writer and translator, to observe that:

• while I didn't notice any 'howlers' like those observed at Euronaval and Paris Air Show events a couple of decades or more ago, it is still surprising to see how many signs, slogans, web sites, videos, brochures and more still use wobbly or plodding English.... and often by the biggest and best funded companies too
• the verb 'prep' (from 'prepare') is increasingly popular with English-language defence industry journalists
• iXBlue, a spectacular rising star in the French defence and high tech sectors, boasts, in addition to cutting-edge technologies, products and marketing:

• arguably best-in-industry English-language web site and product documentation
• a management team that includes (and this is rare indeed among French defence contractors) foreign-trained and English-speaking executives who, I suspect, keep a close eye on the just-mentioned web site and product documentation. 

Love DID's humo(u)r

Defense Industry Daily, or DID, stands head and shoulders above the competition when it comes to humo(u)r. I don't intend to quote DID often, but thought I might give just one short taste:

Tailhooked (Not in Vegas)

An F-35C made its 1st arrested landing, aboard USS Nimitz (CVN 68).

If you got the joke, that's great. If you didn't, perhaps the video will help, at least with the navy interpretation of 'tailhooked'. If it's the meaning that might be associated with the term in Las Vegas, then see what the online slang dictionary has to say here.

A revolution in defence marketing?

Article: Eurofighter turns to social media with Indonesia pitch, FT, 4 November 2014 by Ben Bland and Peggy Hollinger.

Quote:

Many defence companies focus their lobbying on governments but ... Eurofighter hopes to jump ahead of its rivals by taking its sales pitch straight to the young, social-media savvy population.

Comment 1: Amazing!

Comment 2: If this takes off it could have significant impact on the importance of pithy, punchy slogans and messages by defence contractors aimed at a completely new public.

Order, qualifiers (same type, comma separated)

A quote from Defense Industry Daily of 12 October (my bold):

A $27.7 million firm-fixed-price, fixed-price-incentive, cost-plus-fixed fee contract for 7 GQM-163A Coyote SSST base vehicles, including the associated hardware, kits and production support for the U.S. Navy (3 / $13.7M / 50%) and the government of Japan (4 / $14.0M / 50%). All funds are committed immediately.

I wonder what the rule might be to determine the order of the three qualifiers in bold?

Later (17 November):

I have now found time to review what some of my grammars have to say on this and related issues.

In Practical English Usage, under 'commas' (ref. 14.5, p9) (2nd ed.), Michael Swan writes:
"Before nouns, we generally use commas between adjectives (especially in long sequences) which give similar kinds of information, for example in physical descriptions.
            a lovely, long, cool, refreshing drink
            an expensive, ill-planned, wasteful project."

I suggest that this can be extrapolated to cover complex qualifiers like those under discussion.

If this is correct, then the DID writers were definitely right to include the commas.

Given that the qualifiers 'firm-fixed-price', 'fixed-price-incentive' and 'cost-plus-fixed fee' are all of exactly the same nature, I further suggest that the order in which they are presented is of no consequence whatsoever.

Concerning the multiple designators 'GQM-163A', 'Coyote' and 'SSST':
'GQM-163A Coyote' is the name of the system (see here)
and SSST (for Supersonic Sea Skimming Target) the type
here mounted on a vheicle called a 'base vehicle'.

War-talk in the 21st century

The Life & Arts section of the FT's weekend magazine contained an article that I found remarkable relevant to my narrow niche as a translator specialising in naval defence.

War-talk in the 21st century, by Sam Leith, is dated 10 October 2014. Sam is an FT columnist and the author of You Talkin’ to Me? Rhetoric from Aristotle to Obama. And boy does he know his rhetoric and his war-talk!

I was about to quote multiple passages when I realised that I had marked up nearly half of my copy as seriously quotable. If you're interested in the topic, I can only suggest that you read it and mark it up for yourself.

So here are just a few quotes to pique the curiosity of translators, terminologists, rhetoricians and the like:

• the conventional public vocabulary of war
• The passive voice and the absent subject give us casualties that “occur”; “tragedies” that “take place”; women and children who “have been killed”. These incidents are “regrettable”.
• The rationale for avoiding “Islamic State” – “it’s not Islamic and it’s not a state” – has passed swiftly from witticism to cliché.
• “martyrdom operations”
• “Blue on blue” – US military slang for friendly fire 
• Today the implied audience for any given speech can be assumed to be multiple
• The wars we fight now are interventions, proxy engagements, counterinsurgencies, peacekeeping missions, police actions, asymmetric engagements and hybrid wars. You may sprinkle your sceptical inverted commas through that list according to taste.

I repeat: a fascinating read.