Dashing through and other punctuation points, take #1

From Lingua Franca (Language and writing in academe.)

Ben Yagoda on My Favorite Shibboleth.

Quote:

In language, a shibboleth is a usage that members of a certain group engage in not for meaning or elegance but in order to recognize each other (and exclude everybody else). Sometimes it reflects the state of the language decades or centuries before; other times it doesn’t have even that justification.

What are your shibboleths, and, more importantly, are you at least aware of them?
Mine include em-dashes with spaces (see below), minimal capitalization, and, when writing for specialist readerships, the uninhibited use of the sorts of acronyms and abbreviations that my readers use in their own writings.

Here's Ben again:

As it happens, the Quartz article included my own personal favorite shibboleth: “Farther refers to physical distance, while further describes the degree or extent of an action or situation. ‘I can’t run any farther,’ but ‘I have nothing further to say.’” True to form, M-WDEU demurs, pointing out that further and farther are historically the same word, and that both have been used by the best writers in both contexts for centuries. (However, the most recent citation for farther-meaning-additional is Edith Wharton, 1920: “He became aware that Mr. Jackson was clearing his throat preparatory to farther revelations.”)

Anne Curzan on Dashing Through.

Quote:

Once you start using the dash in your writing, it can be hard to stop. I’m talking about the em-dash here — that punctuation mark that is so helpful at linking phrases and clauses that don’t seem well served by a comma, semi-colon, or colon.

Most style guides provide a good amount of leeway in terms of how the dash can function — it can function like a colon (as it did right there), parentheses (as it did in the first sentence of this paragraph), or a comma (as it did in the second sentence of this post).

The dash has a certain flair to it in its informality and its versatility. It makes a parenthetical a bit more prominent — a bit less parenthetical — than parentheses. It adds more sentential importance to an additional thought or an afterthought than a comma can do.

Note that Anne uses em-dashes with spaces — one of my shibboleths.

Lucy Ferriss on Language Shrapnel or how to present obscenities in formal writing. 

Terminology in journalism

In “Why Terminology matters in Journalism” Jessica Mariani (a Study Visitor at Termcoord and PhD Candidate in English Language and Translation at the University of Verona) informs us:

• Reuters, one of the leading news agencies on a global scale, was given birth (sic) as a translation agency in 1851. 
• Bielsa and Bassnett report in their book Translation in Global News (2008), “news agencies are effectively vast translating organizations with the technology and skills required for the production of fast and accurate translations”.

Thank you Jessica.

Mary Norris clarifies "mic" vs "mike"

In her TED Talk entitled Mary Norris: The nit-picking glory of The New Yorker's Comma Queen, Mary clarifies "mic" vs "mike" as follows:

The music industry spells it "mic" because that's how it's spelled on the equipment. ... New Yorker style for "microphone" in its abbreviated form is "mike."

I found this both interesting and instructive.

Australian poet Les Murray was once a technical translator

The latest issue of the Paris Review includes, in the Interviews section, an interview (by Dennis O'Driscoll) with Australian poet Les Murray. The article is entitled simply The Art of Poetry No. 89. The link is to a scanned and OCRed version (including a number of OCR typos) of an article published on 1 April 2005. Recommended reading. A fascinating article about a fascinating and extraordinarily gifted man who is also an Australian National Living Treasure.

We learn that Les as a young man, and before going on to much greater things:

Later, as a student at Sydney University, he concentrated less on prescribed reading lists than on a serendipitous exploration of the university's library stock, and was, he says, blase about the examination system. Nonetheless, his brilliance as a linguist won him a position as a scientific and technical translator at the Australian National University in Canberra.

Later, in response to the question: What aspects of your life were most crucial to your development as a poet? Les says:

I was a freak, but happily my freakishness was in language—not, say, in classifying antique crankshafts. We seem to get a word-freak once or twice a century in the Murray family. Sir James Murray of the Oxford English Dictionary was my cousin, for example. When I'd argue points in the OED with my Russian fellow-translator at the National University in Canberra, I'd tell him we Murrays owned the damn language! Being some other kind of freak has its attractions, mind you. I envy painting its impasto and sheer color-play, how it's not held in by that stubborn insuspendable lexicality that words have. I get out into nonsense as far as I can. Lord knows, though never for nihilist ends . . . There's also the wonderful advantage of music and painting and sculpture, that they don't have to be translated.

Here's a particularly perceptive comment about rural Australians:

Probably half of longer-established Australian rural families have some Aboriginal admixture; and yet most are still in denial about it, dead scared of it, even as educated town folk start gingerly to yearn after that connection. An immense common property of black and white rural folk is what we've been learning to call "country," an intense connection with one's home region as a resource not just of survival but of the spirit. That has probably saved my life, more than once.

On Ezra Pound:

I realize now that poor Pound was mainly a man like Howard Hughes, one who slid so gradually into insanity that people were slow to detect it. He was a resourceful translator of languages he half knew.

More:

I have no real superstitions, except that if I ever start doing a lot of translating, it will signify that poetry has left me. It's a pity, because I'm not a bad translator ...

We then moved to Canberra, where I was a translator of scholarly material for the Australian National University for four years.

The Labor Party's minister of justice, Michael Tate, asked me to revamp the old Oath of Allegiance.

(Under God) from this time forward
I am part of the Australian people.
I share their democracy and freedom.
I obey their laws.
I will never despise their customs or their faith
and I expect Australia to be loyal to me.

"Under God" was optional; and by "their faith" I meant whatever tradition sustained them and underwrote their own good faith. The minister's public servants liked my text down to that line, but were scared stiff of the last line. Here was a social revolution in a paragraph; The people made themselves into citizens and immediately demanded loyalty from the nation, as if the premise of democracy were actually true and the people were sovereign. The contrast with subjecthood under a mighty crown could not be more absolute, or sudden. The first part of the pledge survived in the recasting. The citizen still makes the essential move and constitutes himself as such. But the last two lines fell away, as I expected, and every epithet was doubled to give an appearance of weight. It was turned into legalese, in fact, and the rhythm was gone along with the daring.

DCNS subs for RAN

This post concerns the Australian government's recent announcement that it has selected DCNS of France as the preferred international partner for the design of its next-generation submarines. I write from the viewpoint of a long-time provider of language services to French industry and more particularly the French naval defence industry.

My comments — and more particularly the congratulations — are made relative to the naval defence industry, not to broader political, philosophical and moral issues. Call it a "cop out" if you will. I may return later to questions like Can one justify the existence of the armaments industry and spending a slice of one's career in its service?

On 27 April Les Echos published a dossier entitled Sous-marins australiens : tout comprendre sur le "contrat du siècle" .
On 28 April Mer & Marine published a dossier comprising Australie : Ambitions navales et Eldorado industriel and Sous-marins australiens : Un partenariat stratégique et historique avec la France.

Thoughts on this huge contract

1. Congratulation to DCNS, DCNS Australia, the negotiators and the teams that put together the bid, from engineers to technical writers, translators, support staff and more. All must have done an exceedingly good job.
2. Congratulation to the Australian government on making a major defence decision which, at this stage, looks as though it was genuinely based on sound technical analysis. This is significant given that many defence procurement decisions leave more room for doubt.
3. Very encouraging to read in Future submarine announcement from the RAN's media room that senior USN officers contributed to the bid analysis process thereby guaranteeing, presumably, that (at least at this stage and this level), the idea of integrating a US-designed combat system with a French-designed submarine, complete with systems and sensors, has been thoroughly explored by all concerned from the outset.
4. Also very encouraging to read that the Australian government's “decision was driven by DCNS’s ability to best meet all of the Australian government’s requirements. These included superior sensor performance and stealth characteristics, as well as range and endurance similar to the Collins-class submarine. The government’s considerations also included cost, schedule, program execution, through-life support and Australian industry involvement.” (Source: Future submarine announcement). That's a very impressive statement.
5. Congratulations to the US DoD for (presumably) giving the all clear for the integration of a US-designed combat system with a French-designed submarine, complete with systems and sensors.
6. Congratulation to the French Ministry of Defence for (presumably) giving the all clear for the export, and in many cases the transfer, of technologies previously considered sovereign know-how, including the state-of-the-art stealth hull, the ultra-quiet propulsion system (not least the pump-jet propulsor) and advanced shipbuilding expertise.
7. Very encouraging to read in Sous-marins australiens : Un partenariat stratégique et historique avec la France that

Le franco-australien Ross McInnes, ancien de Thales et président du Conseil d’administration de Safran et de la Chambre de commerce franco-australienne, est notamment présenté comme l'un des artisans de la victoire. (...) Ross McInnes symbolise aussi l’union de l’ « Equipe de France », comme aime l’appeler Hervé Guillou.

Despite the fact that Mr McInnes's background is mostly in corporate finance and as a CFO he is likely to be well aware of the importance of technico-cultural issues in ensuring the success of this sort of project, including the differences between the technical communication cultures of client and prime contractor.

Moreover

1. Shortfin Barracuda Block 1A: great name!
2. As a technical writer and translator I would love to know how much attention the bid evaluation teams paid to technical writing, presentation and related aspects. I would also like to know how much effort DCNS put into these aspects of bid preparation. While these considerations are obviously orders of magnitude less important than confidence, cost, schedule, program execution, through-life support and local industry involvement, among yet other factors, they have been known to contribute to or, on occasions, compromise the impact of some bids.

On technical writing

I would now like to make some admittedly sweeping statements based on my personal experience in France as a technical writer and translator in the hope that may be of interest or possibly even direct benefit to some of the people about to embark upon several months of negotiations.

1. Despite some notable exceptions, technical writing is less appreciated, less understood and less expert in France than in English-speaking countries like Australia.
2. In France much technical writing is done by engineers often without the assistance of trained technical writers.
3. Very few naval engineers in France have English as their first language.
4. Some French engineers draft directly in English, their second language. Others draft in French then have their documents translated into English.
5. The language service providers that win the contracts to translate "technical manuals" are typically selected primarily on the basis of price.
6. These companies typically subcontract to freelance translators who only earn a proportion of the amount billed to the client and often too little to attract the very best, much less to keep them motivated to work to the highest standards.
7. What are the RAN's expectations in these areas and will DCNS and its subcontractors be able to deliver?

I like to think the both client and prime contractor will explore these issues during the contract negotiation phase, that the prime contractor will rise to the challenge and that the client, the RAN, will be happy with with all aspects of this massive project, including the admittedly secondary issue of technical communication.

Challenge for MT freaks

From here:

The word with the most meanings in English is the verb 'set', with 430 senses listed in the Second Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, published in 1989. The word commands the longest entry in the dictionary at 60,000 words, or 326,000 characters.

That's an excellent piece of information for any who thinks they want to get involved in machine translation (MT). Challenge begin with sentences containing different uses of the word 'set' then use your MT system to translate them into N languages, then check the results carefully. Repeat the process until you achieve at least accuracy.

Congratulation DCNS

Malcolm Turbull, the Australian Prime Minister, announced today in Adelaide, that the next generation of 12 submarines will be constructed in Adelaide, with DCNS of France selected as the preferred international partner for the design.

The FT put it this way:
DCNS of France wins A$50bn Australia submarines contract

Le Monde put it this way:

Sous-marins vendus par DCNS à l’Australie : les coulisses d’un contrat « historique »Le constructeur naval militaire français a été retenu par l’Australie pour la construction de douze sous-marins. 4 000 employés de Cherbourg, Nantes et Lorient vont y travailler pendant six ans.

This is a momentous decision for Australia and the RAN and an extraordinary achievement for DCNS. My congratulations to all concerned and to all my clients and acquaintances at DCNS.

I worked for DCNS's head office in Paris for 15 years or more as the leading freelance supplier of French-to-English translations. It was in the course of some 20 years' work for DCNS and other members of the French naval shipbuilding industry that I compiled 

'A French English Glossary of Naval Technology'

Earlier today I tweeted:

#DCNS to supply #AusNavy subs (#NavyDaily ). #t9n jobs ahead. Get #NavTechGloss (https://goo.gl/hyHhXj )