I have translated a couple of things on transsexuals this year – I found Wikipedia helpful for vocabulary – so I was interested to see Joey DiGuglielmo in the Washington Blade Blog responding to criticisms of supposedly offensive terminology.

The Washington Blade had reported on a man who underwent a sex-change operation, later officially took the name Michelle and more recently was sent to a men’s prison. There was criticism of the use of the term sex-change operation instead of gender reassignment surgery, and of the reference to the subject as a man at the beginning of the story. But of course, if there had been no reference to the original sex, the story would have been harder to follow.

DiGlugliemo (pertinently, I am not sure if Joey is male or female, despite a photo…) makes some other remarks about PC language changes:

I also fail to understand why ‘sex change’ has become pejorative. To me, it seems like one of those things that just is what it is. Perhaps to some transgender people, it has a frightening, ill-informed, 1950s-era ‘Glen or Glenda’-type connotation.
…But there are other words and terms that have become un-P.C. despite the fact that, in my opinion, they were perfectly fine to begin with. I find it silly and pretentious when people insist on flight attendant over stewardess, administrative assistant over secretary, or ‘passed away’ instead of died. Are these nothing more than silly semantics games society plays to make individuals feel better?
I waited tables for years, both during and after college and though the canned greeting was supposed to be, ‘Hi, I’m Joey and I’ll be your server this evening,’ I preferred waiter. I had no illusions that my job was any more glamorous than what I was doing: waiting tables!

Meanwhile, Il quaderno dei vocabuli has picked up a story of a few weeks ago in which Silvio Berlusconi referred to Margaret Thatcher in distinctly non-PC, albeit admiring, tones: Independent article.

Gnocca, pronounced “nyokka”, is a vulgar term meaning “vulva” and is the standard word used by construction workers, white-van drivers and long-serving Italian prime ministers for any attractive woman who crosses their path. “The typology is composed of elements of the female sex with a high degree of attractiveness,” deconstructs one faintly priapic, cod-academic Italian website. “The fundamental characteristic of the gnocca is to grab from common mortals whatever she needs to satisfy her desires.” A definition that many former Tory cabinet ministers would probably go along with.

(Washington Blade story via The Lexicographer’s Rules)

Certain Ideas of Europe, the Economist’s Europe blog, reports that a new article on Euromyths has appeared on the European Commission’s website. It lists the most amusing, including:

Nutty EU officials want to rename Bombay mix Mumbai mix—to make the snack politically correct. They say the Indian city of Bombay has been called Mumbai since 1995 so the old name could offend because it dates back to colonial rule.

The euro made me impotent…now a German man claims the switch to the single currency has had a similar dire impact on his personal life—robbing him of his manhood.

Apparently there was a Euromyth a few years ago that motorway bridges have to bear a bust of Jacques Delors, and another that there were to be warning signs on mountains telling climbers that they were high up.

Sadly, this reflects what the British press either believes or thinks its readers want to believe about the EU. Some of the bureaucracy has gone too far, but some has also been reversed. So here is an Independent article of March 2007 on 50 reasons to love the European Union.

Earlier entries:
Language and the EU

“Hippoglossus hippoglossus & chips twice please, luv” / Clupea harengus schon wieder?

In London wurde (wieder) ein Mann verhaftet, der auf einer Gartenmauer saß und über seinen Laptop eine ungesicherte Internetverbindung mitbenutzte.

The Times reports that a man has been arrested for using a laptop in the street to log onto a wireless broadband connection. This is a breach of the Computer Misuse Act and the Communications Act.

Apparently the first conviction was in 2005. At that time a man had been seen in the neighbourhood before and a local reported him to the police.

When police examined his laptop, they discovered that he had logged on several times before. He was found guilty of dishonestly obtaining an electronic communication service and his computer and wireless card were confiscated, he was fined £500 and given a 12-month conditional discharge.

So if you see someone hanging around in the street, there are now more evil intentions to suspect them of.

LATER NOTE: The German American Law Journal blog takes up this topic from the US side. It links to an article in arts technica that shows the situation can be similar in the USA.

City University has recently announced, apparently, that its diploma / M.A. course on legal translation is not starting till autumn 2008. Meanwhile, there are a number of modules that can be taken separately as CPD (The ITI has recently been encouraging members to make a list of measures of CPD they undertake each year, although I don’t think this is an official thing like it is for lawyers).

The modules are offered in the following language combinations:

* English into French
* English into German
* English into Spanish
* English into Italian
* French into English
* German into English
* Spanish into English
* Italian into English

Große Aufregung in der britischen Öffentlichkeit, dass der 26jährige Learco Chindamo, der im Alter von 6 Jahren nach England kam, nicht nach Italien deportiert werden kann.

I don’t usually comment on hot issues, but I find this really bizarre. How can so many people think it’s disgusting not to be able to return someone to Italy even though he has lived in Britain most of his life and doesn’t speak Italian? And I haven’t even been reading the ‘gutter press’. Chindamo will not be released if he is shown to be a danger to the public; if he is released, it will be on licence, so that he can be returned to prison.

Here’s the original story from Wikipedia:

The Wo-Sing-Wo gang, which was mainly Filipino, aspired to be a junior version of the Triads. Twelve of the gang’s members, led by 15-year old Learco Chindamo, a pupil at another school who claimed to be a Triad member, went to St. George’s school on 8 December 1995, to “punish” a 13-year old boy who had quarrelled with a Filipino pupil. Lawrence saw them attack the boy with an iron bar and went outside to remonstrate with the gang. Chindamo punched him and then stabbed him in the chest, and he died in hospital that evening.

Chindamo was convicted of murder at the Old Bailey in October 1996, after a unanimous decision by the jury, and jailed indefinitely (as he was a juvenile at the time). He has always claimed that he was the victim of mistaken identity, and that the real killer was another boy who had borrowed his jacket, although he does not deny that he was present.

Here’s the Independent on the subject:

Upon his release (he is eligible for parole next year), the Home Office wants him to be deported to Italy, a country he has not lived in since he was five. But a court has ruled that this would breach European law.
The decision provoked outrage among the Lawrence family, ministers and the Conservative Party, whose leader, David Cameron, described the case as “a glaring example of what is going wrong in our country”.

How can so many people expect something so ridiculous? (There is more to the story, but it doesn’t change my point). No doubt it will all be blamed on the EU as usual.

EUlawblog comments on an OpenEurope press release which sees this as revealing problems in the EU harmonization of justice and home affairs. And here’s another analysis of the Daily Mail version of the story.

Once upon a time in Translatorland there lived a little Translator. Not a nasty, dirty, horrid little Translator such as you might find living in a horrible little hole in the ground, but a good-natured friendly little Translator who lived in a nice little flat in the capital of Translatorland, Wordtown.

The Little Translator was not actually a Translator as such yet, but he had been to Translator University and had done many exams, and was looking for his first job in Wordtown.

One day he saw an advert in the Wordtown Chronicle, “In-House Translator Required – Opportunity”. “In-House Translator, that could be me!”, the Little Translator said to himself. How happy the Little Translator was! He rushed excitedly about the flat, uttering little cries of joy, gathering up his CV and certificates and all his Important Papers and this and that, and went to the address.

This is the beginning of Part 1 of what is to date a four-part serial story about a naive newly trained translator entering the real world of translation. The author is Mervyn Henderson in Spain, and the site is ProZ.

(Thanks to Marc)