“Translators tend to write in a normalized language and are more attentive to what is broadly understood to be the correct or standard form. Translation tends toward the center, to whatever linguistic regularities are conceptualized as belonging to the standard language, irrespective of what native speakers typically say.
No consecutive interpreter would think of adopting lower-class diction to reproduce for the benefit of a visiting foreign dignitary the kind of language spoken to him by a factory hand or collective farm worker. In written prose, too, translators shy away from giving the uncouth truly uncouth forms of language in the target text...Translation always takes the register of naturally written prose up a notch or two.
There is a seemingly inevitable bias against representing forms of language recognized in the source culture as regional, uncouth, ill-educated or taboo by socially matching forms in the target tongue---presumably because doing so risks identifying the translator as a member of just such a marginal or subordinated class. The social dimension of style doesn’t flow easily from tongue to tongue.”
One reason why translations are often less exciting and interesting than original texts. Let's all just learn all the languages instead.
July 19, 2012
You probably won’t get AIDS
"If you look at the data we have right now, it is very clear what is driving the AIDS epidemic in the United States. It's not sustained heterosexual transmission, it is not IV drug use, it's basically in African American men who have sex with men. HIV in heterosexuals persists only because you have inflow either from other countries, from high prevalence areas for example, or from other risk groups such as intravenous drug users or men who have sex with men."
Trust no one (especially criminals)
Depressing but sounds like good advice from Sam Harris on how to survive an encounter with a criminal.
You should also learn to trust your feelings of apprehension about other people—revising them only slowly and with good reason. This may seem like a very depressing piece of advice. It is. Most of us don’t want to see the world this way, and we take great pains to avoid being rude or appearing racist, suspicious, etc. But violent predators invariably play upon this commitment to civility. The truth is that most of us are very good at detecting ulterior motives and malevolence in others. We must learn to trust these intuitions. To read the reports of rapes, murders, kidnappings and other violent crimes is to continually discover how easily good people can be manipulated by bad ones.
You are under no obligation, for instance, to give a stranger who has rung your doorbell, or decided to stand unusually close to you on the street, the benefit of the doubt. If a man who makes you uncomfortable steps onto an elevator with you, step off. If a man approaches you while you are sitting in your car and something about him doesn’t seem right, you don’t need to roll down your window and have a conversation. Victims of crime often sense that something is wrong in the first moments of encountering their attackers but feel too socially inhibited to create the necessary distance and escape.
However bad your options may appear in the moment, complying with the demands of a person who is seeking to control your movements is a terrible idea. Yes, there are criminals whose only goal is to steal your property. But anyone who attempts to control you—by moving you to another room, putting you in a car, tying you up—probably intends to kill you (or worse). And you must understand in advance that your natural reaction to this situation—to freeze, to comply with instructions—will be the wrong one.
If someone puts a gun to your head and demands your purse or wallet, hand it over immediately and run. Don’t worry about being shot in the back: If your attacker is going to shoot you for running, he was going to shoot you if you stayed in place, and at point-blank range. By running, you make yourself harder to kill. Any attempt to move you, even by a few feet—backing you off a sidewalk and into an alley, forcing you behind a row of bushes—is unacceptable and should mobilize all your physical and emotional resources.
You should also learn to trust your feelings of apprehension about other people—revising them only slowly and with good reason. This may seem like a very depressing piece of advice. It is. Most of us don’t want to see the world this way, and we take great pains to avoid being rude or appearing racist, suspicious, etc. But violent predators invariably play upon this commitment to civility. The truth is that most of us are very good at detecting ulterior motives and malevolence in others. We must learn to trust these intuitions. To read the reports of rapes, murders, kidnappings and other violent crimes is to continually discover how easily good people can be manipulated by bad ones.
You are under no obligation, for instance, to give a stranger who has rung your doorbell, or decided to stand unusually close to you on the street, the benefit of the doubt. If a man who makes you uncomfortable steps onto an elevator with you, step off. If a man approaches you while you are sitting in your car and something about him doesn’t seem right, you don’t need to roll down your window and have a conversation. Victims of crime often sense that something is wrong in the first moments of encountering their attackers but feel too socially inhibited to create the necessary distance and escape.
However bad your options may appear in the moment, complying with the demands of a person who is seeking to control your movements is a terrible idea. Yes, there are criminals whose only goal is to steal your property. But anyone who attempts to control you—by moving you to another room, putting you in a car, tying you up—probably intends to kill you (or worse). And you must understand in advance that your natural reaction to this situation—to freeze, to comply with instructions—will be the wrong one.
If someone puts a gun to your head and demands your purse or wallet, hand it over immediately and run. Don’t worry about being shot in the back: If your attacker is going to shoot you for running, he was going to shoot you if you stayed in place, and at point-blank range. By running, you make yourself harder to kill. Any attempt to move you, even by a few feet—backing you off a sidewalk and into an alley, forcing you behind a row of bushes—is unacceptable and should mobilize all your physical and emotional resources.
Captain, captive
Captain, captive
Of your fate
Fast asleep
On the bed you made
Dream away
Wake up late
–Samuel Menashe
Of your fate
Fast asleep
On the bed you made
Dream away
Wake up late
–Samuel Menashe
July 13, 2012
Finding good food while traveling
If you travel for business, or if you travel at all, often the first problem confronting you in a new place is that of how to find something decent to eat. We have all spent uncounted hours in our hometowns experimenting with restaurants, reading reviews, chatting about food, comparing grocery stores. All of that experience is torn away from you in a new place. Yet, if done right, the food can be one of the best parts of your trip–even in places which might seem like culinary wastelands (Anchorage). And I will tell you how.
First of all, you will probably want to pick up a map of the area. If you’re serious about food, you can’t afford to stay in the area in immediate sight of your hotel. Yes, you may have to do a bit of walking. Hotel maps can be useful – but ignore the restaurant ads on them. You don’t want to subsidize those places’ advertising budgets.
Instead, you’re going to Yelp. Look for the highest-rated places within a two-mile or so radius. But be careful how you interpret those results.
1) Consider the prevailing cuisine of the region. You want a dinner that will be congruent with the rest of your experience of the location. The best sushi place in Columbus, Ohio, is not likely to give you either the Columbus experience or good sushi.
2) Consider the ancillary cuisines of the region. Is there a concentration of immigrants from a particular area? Does the area have a cultural connection with another?
For instance, when you go to Alaska, you think of fish and reindeer sausage. But consider the fact that many Alaskans vacation in Hawaii. Perhaps there might be good Polynesian food. Or maybe the Russian influence has left behind restaurants as well as Orthodox churches. It’s worth doing a bit of Wikipediaing to find out your prospects.
3) Don’t bother reading bad Yelp reviews. Bad reviews are almost never about food. Bad reviews are written by people with personal grudges – they had to wait too long, pay too much, or the staff didn’t show them sufficient deference. Bad reviews can be hilarious, but they are irrelevant to your quest for good food. Especially when written by people who didn’t get in at all.
If you want deferential service, go to the most expensive place you can afford. If you want food, the service, and hence the negative reviews, are largely beside the point. Also, if a review complains about not being given enough food, remember it was, statistically speaking, most likely written by a fat person.
4) Do not be too intimidated by reviews claiming it is hard to get into a restaurant or bar. Many places are crowded in the first few weeks after opening, or if you show up, as so many Yelp reviewers seem to do, with five other people and no reservation on a Saturday night. This does not apply to you, the savvy business traveler. You are most likely alone or with only one other person, and you will prefer to dine early on weekday nights.
5) Read the good reviews. The sheer number of good reviews is irrelevant; what you’re really looking for are good reviews written by people who are interested in food. Which are not as common as you might think.
One Yelp review reads in full:
“The salmon soup was good. It was cold and refreshing.”
And this review is averaged in, along with all the others, to give a star rating.
So read the good reviews with discrimination. Does she love the place because it reminds her of the Cheesecake Factory back home? Does he give you details of the food, or details of the decor? Does he even bother to tell you what he ate, or is he focused on how often his water glass was refilled?
Once you find several good reviews by people who are like you, who will ideally give specific recommendations about what to eat and what to avoid, you’re set. If you do find a really good place, consider ordering a large dinner and eating the leftovers for lunch the next day. Otherwise, eating well during a business lunch is going to be hard, since you most likely won’t have time to research or range far afield.
If we are lucky, maybe my friend will contribute a post on how to find good food in small towns.
UPDATE:
I forgot to say that, if you are traveling with a group, avoid at all costs the restaurant your meeting planner has picked. Remember that her job is not to find great or even good food, but to find a restaurant which will be acceptable to the least common denominator, preferably within a few blocks from the hotel (because many of us are so used to driving that walking more than six blocks feels like a death march to the gulag.) Plus your meeting planner is probably a middle-aged woman with unadventurous tastes and not familiar with the area. I ignored this advice and had the only bad meal of my time in Honolulu.
First of all, you will probably want to pick up a map of the area. If you’re serious about food, you can’t afford to stay in the area in immediate sight of your hotel. Yes, you may have to do a bit of walking. Hotel maps can be useful – but ignore the restaurant ads on them. You don’t want to subsidize those places’ advertising budgets.
Instead, you’re going to Yelp. Look for the highest-rated places within a two-mile or so radius. But be careful how you interpret those results.
1) Consider the prevailing cuisine of the region. You want a dinner that will be congruent with the rest of your experience of the location. The best sushi place in Columbus, Ohio, is not likely to give you either the Columbus experience or good sushi.
2) Consider the ancillary cuisines of the region. Is there a concentration of immigrants from a particular area? Does the area have a cultural connection with another?
For instance, when you go to Alaska, you think of fish and reindeer sausage. But consider the fact that many Alaskans vacation in Hawaii. Perhaps there might be good Polynesian food. Or maybe the Russian influence has left behind restaurants as well as Orthodox churches. It’s worth doing a bit of Wikipediaing to find out your prospects.
3) Don’t bother reading bad Yelp reviews. Bad reviews are almost never about food. Bad reviews are written by people with personal grudges – they had to wait too long, pay too much, or the staff didn’t show them sufficient deference. Bad reviews can be hilarious, but they are irrelevant to your quest for good food. Especially when written by people who didn’t get in at all.
If you want deferential service, go to the most expensive place you can afford. If you want food, the service, and hence the negative reviews, are largely beside the point. Also, if a review complains about not being given enough food, remember it was, statistically speaking, most likely written by a fat person.
4) Do not be too intimidated by reviews claiming it is hard to get into a restaurant or bar. Many places are crowded in the first few weeks after opening, or if you show up, as so many Yelp reviewers seem to do, with five other people and no reservation on a Saturday night. This does not apply to you, the savvy business traveler. You are most likely alone or with only one other person, and you will prefer to dine early on weekday nights.
5) Read the good reviews. The sheer number of good reviews is irrelevant; what you’re really looking for are good reviews written by people who are interested in food. Which are not as common as you might think.
One Yelp review reads in full:
“The salmon soup was good. It was cold and refreshing.”
And this review is averaged in, along with all the others, to give a star rating.
So read the good reviews with discrimination. Does she love the place because it reminds her of the Cheesecake Factory back home? Does he give you details of the food, or details of the decor? Does he even bother to tell you what he ate, or is he focused on how often his water glass was refilled?
Once you find several good reviews by people who are like you, who will ideally give specific recommendations about what to eat and what to avoid, you’re set. If you do find a really good place, consider ordering a large dinner and eating the leftovers for lunch the next day. Otherwise, eating well during a business lunch is going to be hard, since you most likely won’t have time to research or range far afield.
If we are lucky, maybe my friend will contribute a post on how to find good food in small towns.
UPDATE:
I forgot to say that, if you are traveling with a group, avoid at all costs the restaurant your meeting planner has picked. Remember that her job is not to find great or even good food, but to find a restaurant which will be acceptable to the least common denominator, preferably within a few blocks from the hotel (because many of us are so used to driving that walking more than six blocks feels like a death march to the gulag.) Plus your meeting planner is probably a middle-aged woman with unadventurous tastes and not familiar with the area. I ignored this advice and had the only bad meal of my time in Honolulu.
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