Bedlam
5 January 2009
Maggie swallowed hard, but before she could say anything, they heard a wail from one of the high barred windows. It began low in pitch and volume, then ascended the scale, growing louder and higher until it became a scream so forceful it must have torn its owner’s throat. The children froze. Maggie felt goosebumps sweep up and down her.
Maisie clutched Jem’s arm. "What’s that? Oh, what is’t, Jem?" Jem shook his head. The sound stopped suddenly, then began again in its low range, to climb higher and higher. It reminded him of cats fighting.
"A lying-in hospital, maybe?" he suggested. "Like the one on Westminster Bridge Road. Sometimes you hear screams coming from it, when the women are having their babies."
Maggie was frowning at the ivy-covered stone wall. Suddenly her face shifted with recognition and disgust. "Oh Lord," she said, taking a step back. "Bedlam."
Tracy Chevalier, Burning Bright
Am I the only inhabitant of the English-speaking world who didn’t know the origin of "bedlam"? After reading the above passage over the holidays, I asked around me if people knew where this word, which, obviously, is used nowadays to describe a scene of mad confusion and uproar, comes from, and the unanimous reply was: "Duh." However, I suspect some readers on the French side might find it interesting. Anyway, I trotted along to the library, notepad in hand, to check what the OED has to say on the subject, and I found the history of the place:
Applied to the hospital of St Mary of Bethlehem, in London, founded as a priory in 1247, with the special duty of receiving and entertaining the bishop of St Mary of Bethlehem and the canons etc. of this, the mother church, as often as they might come to England. In 1330 it is mentioned as "an hospital" and in 1402 as a hospital for lunatics; in 1346 it was received under the protection of the city of London, and on the dissolution of monasteries, it was granted to the mayor and citizens, and in 1547 incorporated as a royal foundation for reception of lunatics. Thence the modern sense, of which instances appear early in the 16th c. Originally situated in Bishopsgate, in 1676 rebuilt near London Wall and in 1815 transferred to Lambeth.
I won’t patronize you further by talking about the origin of the word "lunatic", although it is close to my heart, as I used to faint and generally behave strangely at every full moon when I was a child. The French translation of "it’s bedlam" could be "on se croirait dans une maison de fous".
Cookery terms
23 December 2008
I love watching cookery programs, which are very popular in the UK. I particularly enjoy listening to the colourful language used by TV chefs and the way it is peppered with French words and expressions. I’ve picked three that I heard over the weekend and that I liked.
Bain-marie
The narrator said that a bain-marie was "a fancy word for a pan full of water". Which is exactly right. You then put a container with the food, which is heated gently and gradually. Who was Marie?
The device's invention is popularly attributed to Mary the Jewess, an ancient alchemist traditionally supposed to have been Miriam, a sister of Moses and who invented or improved this technique with a vase called κηροτακίς. The name comes from the medieval-Latin term balneum Mariae — literally, Mary's bath — from which the French bain de Marie, or bain-marie, is derived.
Cartouche
A cartouche is a circle of paper that is put on top of a sauce to stop a skin forming.
Borrowed from Italian cartoccio (carta "paper" and diminutive –occio) or "paper cornet")
Ballotine
A ballotine is a piece of meat that has been boned, stuffed and then rolled and tied into a bundle before being cooked.
Derived from ballot(t)e, a cookery term coming from ballot, derived from balle, "box of merchandise"
As I was looking for a good cookery glossary and failed, I came across this video, which shows us how things can go horribly wrong when American ladies don’t understand cooking terms like "stir" and "boil". Priceless.
I probably won’t be blogging till the new year now, but I’ll see you in January. Have a good break everyone!
Think Visibility conference
20 December 2008
One of my new year resolutions for 2009 is to attend at least two conferences. It's something I've never done and I feel like it'd be a great opportunity to learn new things, meet people and broaden my horizons. That's why I've registered for Think Visibility, which is "for people who develop, design, manage or oversee websites". The schedule looks great.
Why this conference, which has little to do with translation? Well, I've managed this website in a rather amateurish fashion so far, learning from friends and various articles on the Web, and I lack a clear understanding of what makes a website really attractive to search engines. That's why I've asked a lovely coworker to look at search engine optimisation and general usability during the redesign of this website (which I'm very excited about!), so I can start afresh on a solid base.
Hopefully the conference will give me some of the tools I need to carry on managing the site properly once the redesign is live and hence marketing my services more efficiently. Besides, with more and more websites needing localisation, I might even make a few contacts who could be interested in my translation services. Who knows? I'll let you know it goes.
A curiously French complaint
15 December 2008
Let’s start the week with a smile: this article by Emma Jane Kirby, heard on Sunday on Radio 4 and transcribed on the BBC site, compares British and French attitudes towards disease and health. It notes that due a lack of funds, the expensive French system is being "anglicized", "turning away from the indulgent "There, there" approach and moving towards a much more "Get along with you now" stiff upper lip attitude."
I particularly enjoyed the ending:
A couple of years back, while skiing in the Alps after a tiring stint in Afghanistan, I noticed my legs were covered in small red spots and I was feeling lethargic. Could I finally have contracted the elusive heavy legs syndrome?
"No!" said the alarmed French doctor, "you have a tropical illness and you need to go straight to hospital."
Laughing to myself at the typical Gallic solicitousness, I popped a Paracetamol and headed straight back to the slopes.
Two days later, delirious with fever and covered in enormous black lumps, I was lying in the isolation unit of a London hospital, howling in pain and terrified what my test results would reveal.
Alerted by my cries, a masked nurse popped her head around the door. "Oh for goodness sake," she said brusquely. "Anyone would think you were dying. You've only got suspected leprosy."
Plain English Campaign
12 December 2008
A reader asked me whether the Plain English campaign has affected my work as a translator. This campaign is mainly aimed at the literature produced by the government, at all levels, to ensure that crucial information is easily understandable by all. AskOxford gives a very good example:
Original: In the event of your being evicted from your dwelling as a result of wilfully failing to pay your rent, the council may take the view that you have rendered yourself intentionally homeless and as such it would not be obliged to offer you alternative housing.
Plain English: If you are evicted from your home because you deliberately fail to pay your rent, the council may decide that you have made yourself intentionally homeless. If this happens, the council does not need to offer you alternative permanent housing.
Although their recommendations do call for the use of simple words, and particularly seem to discourage the use of words of Latin origin, which I have a soft spot for, I think it is very sensible within this particular context of administrative communication, which people of all education levels must understand if we want society to function well.
It hasn’t affected my work at all. When it comes to style, I follow the source text and I get my instructions from my clients and although some of my translations require a clear and concise way of writing (instructions on how to use a printer, for example), most of the work I do involves creativity and a lively, dynamic style which is meant to engage readers, not just inform them.
The campaign gives Golden Bull awards to particularly obscure pieces of prose; the following are among the 2007 winners:
"Moving forwards, we as Virgin Trains are looking to take ownership of the flow in question to apply our pricing structure, thus resulting in this journey search appearing in the new category-matrix format. The pricing of this particular flow is an issue going back to 1996 and it is not something that we can change until 2008 at the earliest. I hope this makes the situation clear."
– Virgin Trains for a letter about problems booking online
"Passenger shoe repatriation area only"
– BAA for a sign at Gatwick Airport
"Every Autumn a combination of leaves on the line, atmospheric conditions and prevailing damp conditions lead to a low adhesion between the rail head and the wheel which causes services to be delayed or even cancelled. NI Railways are committed to minimising service delays, where we can, by implementing a comprehensive low adhesion action programme."
– Translink for a sign at Coleraine railway station
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