Merchandise

1. I'm reading The Simpsons: An Uncensored, Unauthorized History, and it mentions how there was a huge wave of ridiculous amounts of merchandise when the show first came out. I remember that and wasn't especially surprised by that at the time, but I can't see that happening today. I can't articulate why, I just can't imagine any new TV show, no matter how awesome, successfully selling that much merchandise. Has society as a whole evolved, or is it just because I'm not longer in child world?

2. After Eddie Izzard's gig, there were these guys right outside Massey Hall selling bootleg merch - T-shirts and DVDs for like $5. (Which I thought was rather rude - Eddie himself was right there inside and could have come out at any time!) But I wonder how big the market for that stuff is? For the t-shirts, you'd have to be fan enough to want a tour t-shirt (i.e. they were the big square black ones with the name of the tour and all the cities, not even the cute and humorous Cake or Death and Covered in Bees shirts), but not fan enough to want your money to go into Eddie's pocket (and be okay with it going in some random guy's pocket) even while you're still carrying the endorphin rush from the three-hour show he just gave us.

For the DVDs, the same fan-enough/not-fan-enough balance applies, plus you'd have to be un-savvy enough not to know how to download the shows for free online, but still savvy enough to have gotten tickets for this sold-out barely-advertised show (and to have enjoyed the show you just finished watching enough that you want DVDs of more so immediately that you can't wait until you get home and can google the thing.)

From what I know of the fandom, that seems like a very narrow slice of the market. I wonder if these guys picked Eddie specifically (and, if so, why), or if they do this for every single show that comes into town? I wonder what their margins are like? In my experience, Eddie fans not only tend to be savvy, but also are rather inclined to care about Eddie personally, to the extent that people would think about whether they're taking money out of Eddie's pocket by buying bootleg merch. (That's not to say no one would ever bootleg, but thought would at least go into it.) I wonder how their margins on Eddie merch compare with their margins on other merch?

Things They Should Invent: relativistic requirements for salvation

Picture this: the most moral 10% of the population goes to heaven. Everyone else goes to hell.

That would be a good motivator for ethical behaviour, wouldn't it? It would also be a good way to get people to butt out of other people's business and work on improving themselves.

Now all we have to do is get the church to embrace moral relativism.

Things They Should Invent: 24-hour walk-in clinics next door to all emergency rooms

This article, which is ultimately about many other things, starts with the author wondering why people bring their kids to the Emergency room rather than to a walk-in clinic.

Solution: have a walk-in clinic right there. In the hospital. Next door to the emergency room. It doesn't have to be part of the hospital administratively, it could be a storefront inside the hospital building (like how there's often a coffee shop and a florist's). Then whenever someone comes into the emergency room with a non-emergency, the triage nurse can just re-direct them to the walk-in clinic, where they'll get treated faster.

Current earworm

(Video is, as usual, irrelevant)

Things They Should Invent: secret sources of water on stage during live theatre

Eddie Izzard started coughing in the middle of talking, so he went off to the wings, got a bottle of water, drank some, and then grinned at us and said "You can't do that in Shakespeare, can you?" Then he went off on a glorious tangent that started with Shakespearean actors drinking water and somehow ended with Laertes killing Ophelia with a bazooka, and all was right with the world.

But it occurred to me: you could totally do that in Shakespeare if the water was in a period-appropriate goblet that happened to be sitting somewhere on the set! Any decent actor would be able to drink water without breaking character.

They should totally do that in live theatre. Whenever possible, incorporate a glass of water or two into the set. It would make the actors' jobs much easier.

Things They Should Invent: reuseable LRTs

One major debate in Toronto transit planning is LRTs vs. subways. LRTs are faster and cheaper to build, subways are more user-friendly.

I'd much rather have an LRT right away than be stuck with buses for years and years and years waiting for a subway for the reasons described here. But I do find the subway a more pleasant way to travel overall.

So what I'd really like them to do is put LRTs in right away and then slowly replace them with subways. I doubt that would happen though - too much duplication of resources.

So what if we could reuse the resources? What if they could create LRT infrastructure that can be removed when we're done with it and used elsewhere in the city? You just take up the rails and install them in a different street, and send the LRT cars over there. They'd still have to budget for workers constantly building stuff, but that's job creation and would fall under the operating budget (as opposed to major kick-start capital investments) if they just had and budgeted for workers constantly expanding the TTC.

And what would we do with the LRT lanes once the tracks are removed? Bike lanes! Good, physically separated bike lanes like in Amsterdam. We sell this to drivers by telling them it will keep cyclist out of their way.

Shutting the fuck up: a risk analysis

Is shutting the fuck up a good idea or a bad idea? Let's analyze this.

We as Canadians have two choices: shut the fuck up, or continuing to inform our government of our wishes.

The government has three choices: comply with the wishes of Canadians, ignore us and do whatever they want anyway, and retaliate by punishing not only Canadians but also the people in developing countries whom we want to help.

So let's look at every permutation:

1. We STFU and the government decides to comply. At first glance this makes no sense - how can they comply if we're not saying anything? But they might take our silence for consent - it's happened before (c.f. making O Canada inclusive, updating sex ed. in Ontario). Or what if this is some sort of mind game where they'll only give us what we want if we stop asking for it? That seems to be what Senator Ruth is suggesting. Do Canadians really want their government to work that way? How could we possibly make our country work if we have to not inform our government of our wishes to make them happen, or stop informing them of our wishes at some secret unspoken signal? Completely unreasonable.

2. We keep talking and the government decides to comply. Optimal outcome. Government representing the wishes of the people. Exactly how democracy is supposed to work.

Therefore, if the government's plan is to comply, the best option is to keep talking.

3. We STFU and the government decides to ignore us. Again, they would likely publicly present our silence as consent.

4. We keep talking and the government decides to ignore us. We're still being ignored, but at least the results cannot be attributed to us, and it is made obvious that the government is ignoring the will of the people.

Therefore, if the government's plan is to ignore us, the best option is to keep talking.

5. We STFU and the government decides to retaliate. That would be like Darth Vader destroying Alderaan.

6. We keep talking and the government decides to retaliate. It would become glaringly obvious that the government punishes people for informing the government of their will, and, while there may be short-term pain, any government that would do this would be unelectable in the future and it would stand as a lesson to any other future Darth Vaders who might want to swoop in.

Therefore, if the government's plan is to retaliate, the best option is to keep talking.

Sprinklers

If you remember from fire extinguisher training, there are three classes of fires. Class A is ordinary combustibles (paper, wood, etc.). Class B is grease/oil/etc. Class C is electrical. You can use water to extinguish a Class A fire, but it would actually make things worse for Class B and Class C fires. For Class B, because oil and water don't mix, it would just spread the burning oil around. And for Class C, water + electricity is obviously a bad idea. This is all really basic. I learned it in babysitting class when I was 12, and I'm sure you all learned it similarly early on.

Conventional wisdom is that installing sprinklers makes it much safer if there's a fire. Question: what happens if it's a grease fire or an electrical fire?

More information please: unilingual judges edition

Apparently some people think unilingual judges should be permitted to sit on the Supreme Court. The people who support this seem to be thinking that requiring bilingualism (and this even though it would just be passive bilingualism) would rule out some of the best candidates.

But judges on all other Federal Courts have to be bilingual.

So under what circumstances would a person be one of the very best candidates in the country for the Supreme Court but not have Federal Court experience? What experience or expertise would they have that Federal Court judges lack? Why, if this experience or expertise makes a person such an epicly better candidate than the Federal Court judges, has is not been possible for any of the Federal Court judges to gain similar expertise?

Are there any actual specific people currently in existence would would be an ideal candidate for the Supreme Court but don't have Federal Court experience? If so, with the understanding that I haven't exactly been breathlessly following jurists' careers, what do these specific people have that the existing Federal Court judges don't?

Justin Suarez

On Ugly Betty, it was a big deal that the Suarez family was nothing but supportive when Justin came to the realization that he's gay.

But on top of that, they were nothing but supportive of a 14-year-old having a romance! Think back to 14. Can you imagine? No over-supervision, no trying to frighten or intimidate your partner, no trying to keep you from spending time together on the pathetic excuse that it could hurt your grades, no Talks, none of that stupid "It's not you we don't trust" bullshit. Your parents see you snogging, and they're just happy you've found someone who makes you happy. At 14!!! Wouldn't that be awesome?

Strategies for translating Eddie Izzard Stripped: giraffes & tigers

Disclaimers:

1. This post contains spoilers for Eddie Izzard's Stripped. If you're going to see it live and you haven't been spoiled yet, I strongly recommend skipping this post until you see it. (Specifically, this post dissects the bit with the giraffes. If this isn't yet meaningful to you, skip it.) Reading my translation strategies isn't worth missing out on discovering this particular piece of material live.

2. This post does not contain solutions, only strategies. The strategies could be used by a talented native speaker of the target language to translate the material, but I'm not nearly talented enough to translate untranslatable comedy away from my mother tongue.

3. Some creators don't like fans to give them ideas for fear of later lawsuits. So I am explicitly stating that this idea is free for the taking. I doubt you can claim ownership on a mere strategy anyway, but regardless. The original material belongs to Eddie Izzard, this translation strategy is free for anyone to use. If I get wind that it has been used, I will simply be flattered.

This is the scene I'm talking about:



First issue: Does the target culture have charades?

Will the audience recognize what Eddie's doing when he's charading? If so, you're fine and can carry on to the next step. (Just check whether charades is played exactly the same in the target culture, i.e. are the ways of indicating syllables and the nose-touchy "you're right!" sign the same?) If not, that needs to be addressed before we go any further. There are two possible approaches here:

a) Find another suitable game. It needs to be a word guessing game that is played silently, it needs to be recognizable when performed/mimed on stage without props, and, to retain the core humour of the piece, it needs to be somewhat dependent on the verbal characteristics of the words. The piece draws its humour from the fact that mute animals can still recognize homophones and put together syllables to create words. In terms of pure translation, it would be perfectly valid to use a word guessing game that isn't dependent on the verbal characteristics of the words, but that would be far less effective as a piece of humour. So if you're doing this for class, you can totally go for a game that doesn't depend on verbal characteristics and get a solid B- (or maybe a B+ if the prof gives you credit for tackling something untranslatable). But if you're actually adapting it for the stage, don't go there. Better to leave it out of the show all together than to eliminate the crux of the humour.

b) The most awesome callback ever. Introduce new material early in the set that, as part of a broader gag or story, explains the English game of charades, complete with demonstrations, so the audience has a solid grounding in how the game is played. Then, in the second half of the show, bring out the giraffes. This is incredibly difficult and beyond the scope of translation, and it would be impossible to implement in a traditional translator-client relationship. ("Okay, I've got your translation all ready, I just need you to write five minutes of brand new material that meets these very specific requirements.") But if it could be carried off, it might be the greatest callback in human history.

Second issue: Replace the tiger

The tiger is a tiger in the first place because it's charadable. It doesn't need to be a tiger. It could be any animal, or indeed anything that would present a threat to a giraffe. (Lions, jaguars, hunters, alien abductions, Voldemort...) While the tiger was originally a cop-out in that tigers and giraffes don't co-exist in the wild, there is some humour to be gained from the fact that it is a cop-out. When Eddie performs it at least, the fact of admitting to a cop-out is charming, and there's a laugh or two in speculating just how and why the tigers are in Africa.

So the tiger's replacement needs to have the following characteristics.

a) Be charadable - in the target language. This is obviously the most important factor, because without something to charade the material wouldn't exist. You can't use the tiger charade used in the English version of Stripped because "cravate-grr" doesn't mean anything in any language. You need a target-language word where each syllable has a charadable homophone in the target language.

b) Be something giraffes would need to talk about. Humour could be gained in explaining how something that isn't at first glance a threat to a giraffe is in fact a threat. (If the justification of the threat is kind of half-assed, it could be introduced earlier in the show - perhaps on Noah's Ark - and gain additional humour by being a callback.) Alternatively, it doesn't necessarily need to be a threat that the giraffes announce to each other. It could be food, or a shoe sale, or a celebrity whose autograph they want. If it isn't a threat humour will be lost because the silent scream bit would have to be cut, so it might be useful to introduce additional humour by making the subject of the charades something more surreal than just food. But on the other hand, it's quite possible to overload the surreality. We already have a human performer miming being a giraffe, and then miming being a giraffe performing charades. It's possible that adding something too surreal to all this - like the giraffes have an Elvis sighting or something - might take it too far and lose the audience. I don't have the skill to tell when sitting behind my computer. As a translator, my ideal approach would be to present options - say yummy trees, and an ice cream truck, and a Sith lord, and an Elvis sighting - and let the performer use their professional judgement.

c) Be two syllables long. One syllable isn't quite charades, it's just mime. The humour comes from mute animals recognizing homophones and combining syllables to form words, so you'd lose a lot of that with just one syllable. But there's also the audience's attention span to take into account. A purely visual bit like this requires more audience attention than a verbal bit, because they can't look away from the stage even for a second. (If you've ever taken a sign-language class taught solely in sign language, you'll know how hard this is.) They have to accept the charading giraffes, retain memory of each syllable, put the word together without verbal repetition, and accept that the giraffes are putting the word together through mime rather than through verbal repetition. That's a lot of commitment, and if you lose even a bit of the commitment you crash and burn. Monty Python's "Call the next defend-ANT" bit works because they're constantly repeating the previously guessed syllables out loud, but you can see why it would never work silently. Three syllables might work, maybe, but it's really better to focus your efforts on finding a suitable two-syllable word. In other words, even if you have the most perfect charade ever for Eyjafjallajökull, this isn't the place to use it.

Wherein I finally figure out how to use my Signature Strength

Translation most often falls close to the end of the project cycle. After all, there's no point in paying a translator to translate the first draft if it's all just going to get rewritten again later. However, this often ends up putting the crunch on us. I've been in a number of situations recently where someone before me in the project cycle gave an over-optimistic estimate of how long their part would take them, so I got the text later than I should have. Because printers' deadlines and pre-announced released dates are immovable, that means I have to absorb the lost time and I often end up turning out work that I'm not exactly proud of, because there simply isn't time to do work I am proud of and the client would rather have suboptimal English than delay the release date. However, this makes me very frustrated with the person whose overestimation of their own abilities shortened my translation time, and if I had a say in the matter it would be enough to make me not want to work with them again.

I thought of this when I read Clay Shirky's Rant About Women:

And it looks to me like women in general, and the women whose educations I am responsible for in particular, are often lousy at those kinds of behaviors, even when the situation calls for it. They aren’t just bad at behaving like arrogant self-aggrandizing jerks. They are bad at behaving like self-promoting narcissists, anti-social obsessives, or pompous blowhards, even a little bit, even temporarily, even when it would be in their best interests to do so. Whatever bad things you can say about those behaviors, you can’t say they are underrepresented among people who have changed the world.

One thing I've been doing in my own life, primarily out of distaste for the self-aggrandizing jerks and pompous blowhards I've encountered, is I always try to represent my level of confidence and certainty accurately. I try to give safe deadline estimates, not optimistic ones. When I know I can do the thousand words in an hour I say so, but if I'm not sure if I can I say it will take three hours. (Q: WTF's with the wide range? A: I can work much faster when I'm already familiar with the text type and the subject matter.) If you've been reading my blog for a while, you might have noticed that I try very hard not to make declarative statements unless I'm actually certain. I do that in real life too, and I've found that it's given me credibility over time. When I do make a declarative statement, people tend to listen.

Recently we had a client request a very large, important text for an impossibly tight deadline. After some discussion and negotiation, we came to the conclusion that we could deliver it on time by dividing it up among the entire team, but we couldn't guarantee our normal quality level. Normally, if a text is divided up among several translators, another translator who didn't work on it rereads the whole thing and makes sure it's internally consistent. There simply wasn't time for that to happen. But it was so important and the deadline was so imperative that the client agreed to this, and made time in their own schedule to come into work early to reread it and do quality control themselves. Once it was all done, we ended up getting a very happy email from the client, because the text we delivered was of high quality and needed very little revision at all. Which wasn't completely surprising - we do do high quality work - but we couldn't realistically guarantee the quality if no one does a reread. So we give a realistic estimate, exceed it somewhat, and the client is happy. On the other hand, the people before me in the project cycles overestimate their abilities, and it annoys people downstream and is detrimental to the quality of the entire project.

A long time ago, I took the VIA Signature Strengths quiz and found that my top signature strength is modesty and humility. But you're supposed to use your signature strengths, and I couldn't tell how you actually use modesty and humility.

Turns out this is how. And it only took me five years to figure it out.

More information please: bystander effect edition

An elderly man got mugged on the subway and nobody helped.

Obviously, that sucks and that's not the kind of city we want to be. And it's very easy and kind of egotistically satisfying to sit here comfortably behind our computers and dis the other passengers on the subway car and smugly assume we'd do better if we were in that position.

But that's not productive or helpful. That won't get better results if this ever happens again. What we need to do is figure out what the people on that subway didn't know and what stopped them from acting, and get out the information that would have empowered/inspired them to act.

So let's start at the beginning: What do you do if someone is being mugged? Your visceral reaction is "Well, help them, DUH!"

But how do you do that? Yes, you press the yellow strip. But what happens when you press the yellow strip? For example, the news articles in response to this incident mentioned that it doesn't sound an audible alarm. I didn't actually know that, and it's useful to know. Also, does the yellow strip stop the train? I'd assume it doesn't because that would be illogical (you don't want to be stuck in a tunnel when an incident is happening), but it resembles the stop signals on some buses, so it might lead people to believe it would stop the train.

But once the yellow strip is pressed, someone should still help the elderly man. How, exactly, do you do that? The first mental image that comes to mind is physically intervening. But would that actually work? I, like many other people, am nowhere near strong enough to physically restrain one grown man (and in this case there were two grown men). So I wouldn't be stopping them, I'd just be distracting them. Which does have value and buys the victim some time, but I'm not sure if it's the best use of me. So, since I'd just be distracting the perps rather than stopping them, I started brainstorming other ways to distract them. Taunt them? Pants them? Steal their hat and throw it across the subway car like a playground bully? Steal their wallet? I'd probably get hurt. What if they have a gun? Then other people on the subway car could get hurt too - would my taunting and distracting the attackers put other lives at risk? What's the best approach to take? Would my jumping into the fray inspire/shame other people to help, or would it make them go "Meh, she's got it under control". Should I take their picture, or get someone whose phone can email pictures to do that?

Obviously, all these ideas are just ideas. They aren't necessarily good ones, they just popped into my head. What we need is advice from experts, publicized in the media, on what a person who isn't strong enough to restrain a grown man could do to help. What would be productive? What would be most likely to get positive results rather than just getting more people hurt? Often when I've found myself in unexpected situations I've frozen up and had no idea how to react, because I didn't anticipate this. But after I've put thought into what I'd do in a situation, I have ideas and can react well the next time. So let's put aside the temptation to throw blame and work on getting useful ideas out there, so people will know what to do next time.

They've also been trying to convince witnesses to come forward and talk to the police, and I think it would be useful here to give them an idea of what to expect. They should tell them that they're not going to get blamed or get in trouble for not responding (and if they are going to get blamed or get in trouble, they should make it so that doesn't happen). They should get the statements they need, but also find out (in a non-blamey but rather proactive and brainstormy way) why exactly they didn't respond and what would have helped elicit a response from them. Then we can use this information to help the public be better prepared in the future.

So a dyslexic walks into a bra...

I saw Eddie Izzard! (Who wasn't wearing a bra, at least not that I could tell, but I didn't want to lose my chance to be the first person on the recorded internet to use that line in reference to Eddie Izzard.)

I complained a lot about the way this show was promoted. I didn't get an official announcement until several days after the presale had started (when I already had my tickets in hand!) and the promo code was never officially released, at all. But this did have the positive result that the place was a love-in! Everyone around us was fan enough to have been actively keeping an eye out for when Eddie was going to do a show in Toronto, and to guess or hunt for the promo code. When Eddie walked on stage we gave him a genuine, heartfelt, standing O, where we were quite sincerely saying thank you for coming to Toronto. More than that, it felt like we were all on the same side. Even waiting in line for the washroom at intermission, it felt like we were all on the same team. It was a good feeling, and not something I've experienced before.

I was also worried by the fact that I'd been spoiled. I didn't think Eddie would be bringing this show to Canada at all ever, so I sought out bootlegs and later bought the European DVD (with the very sexy SUBTITLES IN 17 LANGUAGES!) and therefore I knew what was coming. I have never laughed so much in my life as the first time I experienced Eddie's material fresh, and I was rather disappointed that I wouldn't get the joy of experiencing material fresh combined with the joy of experiencing it live. But I needn't have worried. Eddie gave us THREE HOURS, and I was laughing or smiling or floating happily the entire time. He started by asking us who Massey Hall was named after, to which several people said Vincent Massey. Then he asked who Vincent Massey was, and Poodle and I (and several other people, I'm sure) said Governor General. But since Poodle is far louder than I am, he focused in our direction and asked what a Governor General is, which Poodle explained. And I'm going to bask in reflected glory and say that WE explained. So that sent Eddie off on a tangent on the monarchy, most of which I'd heard him say before, but it was a natural organic tangent and therefore just felt like he was standing on the stage chatting with us.

And most of the show felt like that. There were the set pieces that I recognized, but most of the in between felt like he was just telling us what was currently in his brain, which is my very favourite part of the whole thing. I recognize his "make is sound like I'm making this up as I go along" verbal tics, but it did genuinely seem like he was making a lot of it up as he went along. He even made himself laugh a few times!

I laughed until I cried until my makeup was ruined (note to self: wear waterproof mascara and eyeliner next time!) and just grinned like an idiot the rest of the time, basking in waves of joy filling the room and the further joy of sharing this joy with the person with whom I most wanted to share it. Having been spoiled wasn't a problem. I didn't feel like "Meh, I've heard this before" - I felt like a co-conspirator.

In a moment of foolishness, I bought extremely excellent tickets for the second round of Toronto shows at the end of May. And after seeing this show, I'm very glad I did so.

***

Silly personal fannish stuff:

- I laughed for three hours straight. That's an awesome feeling, physiologically. It gives the calm and mental clarity that you normally get from the perfect balance of cardio and yoga and naturopath-recommended supplements, and I haven't had it since I saw Eddie's DVDs for the very first time. After the first act, I was just kind of floating along on this endorphin-like high where nothing mattered. We waited outside the stage door for an hour, and that didn't matter. I haven't eaten since 5 pm, and that doesn't matter. If this were a drug, I'd become an addict. If there were some way to guarantee that I would feel it every time, I would happily wake up at 4 in the morning every day to laugh for three straight hours before starting my day. It's 2:30 a.m. as I'm typing this, and I seriously think I could stay up all night and go straight through all tomorrow if I had to.

- This was actually the first serious fannish experience I've ever had in my life. I never had an opportunity to be fangirl in my teens like most people do (that's a topic for a possible future blog post), so this was the first time in my life I've ever seen That Thing I Love live and in person. As I said to Poodle as Eddie stepped out on stage for the first time, "He's real!!!" It's quite the emotional arc, and rather unlike anything I've ever experienced before. I now understand why Beatles fangirls cried. We waited around outside the stage door (thank you Poodle for instigating that!) and very briefly got him to sign our programs and spoke German at him (to disprove his earlier allegation that we don't understand German - he spoke some German onstage and we and a number of other people applauded, and Eddie said something to the effect of "Don't clap, I know you don't actually understand it.") and probably made fools of ourselves, all of which I understand intellectually was very kind and gracious on Eddie's part and wholeheartedly appreciate and will use as anecdotal evidence of what an awesome human being he is. But it also drove home the fact that I'm never going to get to have an actual conversation with him. Eddie has (entirely inadvertently on his part) been a role model to me for holy shit three years now, and as a result I've accumulated a number of things I'd be interested in discussing with him. Not just squeeing things at him or showing off look at me I speak German like I did today, but actual back-and-forth productive discussion, the kind where we build on each other's ideas and both come out smarter than we went in. I could get a good half-hour of fruitful bilateral discussion on the challenges of and strategies for adapting his current show for non-English audiences alone. And, in the midst of my fangasm and endorphin high, it kind of slapped me in the face that that's never going to happen. Not entirely sure what to do with that just yet.

- Heather Mallick, to whose book title I owe my discovery of Eddie Izzard, was sitting across the aisle from us! I was seriously considering going over and talking to her, to thank her for (inadvertently on her part, but life-changingly for me) introducing me to Eddie. But the opportunity never presented itself - it got too crowded at intermission and at the end of the show, and I would have annoyed and inconvenienced a whole lot of people just to do it. So, Ms. Mallick, if you ever happen to google upon this, thank you! Seriously. Eddie has inspired me and made me a better person in many areas of life, and it is thanks to you that I discovered him. Sincerely, the girl in the red shoes next to the guy who explained what a Governor General is.

How do people know they can give training?

Sometimes professional training is give by members of the profession in question (rather than teachers/professors/trainers).

The very first time these people give a training session, how do they know that they have knowledge/expertise that the other members of their profession don't?

And how do they know what the people receiving the training don't know about the topic in question?

The value of using cognates in translation

Everyone knows the argument for not using cognates. Even people who don't speak Spanish know that embarazada doesn't mean embarrassed. And I'm certainly not saying you should use cognates blindly - they're called faux amis for a reason.

However, there is some value in using cognates. It makes it easier for partially bilingual people reading in their second language to understand, and it makes it easier for partially bilingual people to land on the right word when speaking or writing in their other language. If packaging or objects have to be physically labelled, it saves valuable space if the name is the same in both languages.

From the reviser's point of view, departing from the cognate to something that doesn't work as well is far worse than using cognates when there are better words (or even mistakenly using faux amis). Unless the translator is a student or a trainee, the reviser doesn't always necessarily look at the source text and the translation side by side (nor should they have to when revising the work of a fully qualified translator). They're more likely to review the translation on its own merits, and refer to the source text when they feel it's necessary. As trained and qualified translators, revisers can quickly recognize calques, faux amis, and other common traps that arise from the overuse of cognates. These are errors, but they're easy to fix because the reviser can see exactly how you got there.

However, if you depart from the cognate in a way that ends up not being quite right, I might not recognize it. It won't ping as an error. I'm more likely to assume that was the concept used in the source text, and I won't even think to go back and check. Furthermore, if you depart from the cognate to something worse than the cognate, then I can't trust any of your word choices. The mistakes and suboptimal choices you are making are difficult to see and may even be invisible, so now I have to read the whole text side by side, which takes quite a lot of time and raises my frustration level. (Intellectually I know that I should be all zen and not let my frustration level affect my evaluation of a text or the product to client, but realistically I'm just not strong enough to do that.)

To use rather simplistic examples (because I can't think of perfectly analogous fake examples and I don't want to pick on any real translations), if the source text says ministère and the translator translates that as "ministry" for a jurisdiction that uses "department", I can see exactly what the translator did there and it's easy for me to fix (and easy for me to give them clear and specific feedback to prevent it from happening again). However, if the source text says Président and the translator translates that as "Executive Director" but the person's actual title is "Chair" (or, worse, "President") then I have to double check every. single. term. because I can neither trust or predict the translator's word choices.

So what's the solution? You need to be able to justify every departure from the cognate. Every time you choose not to use an available cognate, you must be able to explain "I departed from the cognate because ________". "Because it's a cognate" is not a good enough reason. "Because it's a faux ami" is. So is "because it's the proper terminology", "because the cognate is unidiomatic in English", "because the cognate is not the best word to express what the source text really means", and "because the cognate made my inner 12-year-old snicker". If you can't justify your departure, stick with the cognate. Even if it's wrong, it's wrong in the most painless way possible.

This is one of my favourite lyrics

I build each one of my songs out of glass
So you can see me inside them, I suppose
Or you could just leave the image of me in the background, I guess
And watch your own reflection superimposed.

Eddie Izzard's latest astounding achievement

The Globe and Mail published a fluffy little promotional interview with Eddie Izzard. This article has been on their website for at least 24 hours now, and spent most of the day headlined (and some of the day featured with a photo) on the front page. It has therefore received comments.

As of right now, every single comment is positive. Every. Single. One. No one is dissing Eddie or the author, no one is going off on their pet political tangent, no one is complaining that the G&M calls itself a national newspaper but this particular article doesn't cover their part of the country, no one is dissing other commenters, no one is posting "So who cares?" There are people going YAY Eddie, and there are quotefests. (And no one is even posting to complain that other posters are indulging in quotefests!) And on top of all this, only thumbs-up ratings have been given. No thumbs-down whatsoever! And this in a Globe & Mail comments page!

This might be even more miraculous than the marathons!

Things They Should Invent: "just one little thing" limit

So many pieces of advice you hear are presented as "just one little thing" - a "quick and easy" "manageable step" you're supposed to do every day and then your life will be flawless.

"Just make your lunch the night before, it only takes a few minutes!" "Just get off one bus stop early and walk the rest of the way!" "Just follow this quick and easy four-minute workout every day!" "Just spend 15 minutes a day decluttering!" "Just add a cup of green tea and a handful of lentils to your meal!" "Just budget a dollar a day!" "Just take a few minutes to write down everything you eat in your journal!" "Just shine your sink before you go to bed!"

And if you ever decline to follow the advice, the purveyor of the advice is all "What's the big deal? I don't see what your problem is! It's only a few minutes/a dollar a day/a tiny bit more effort!"

There needs to be an official limit. They need to get together a group of authoritative experts and legislate the maximum time/money/effort a person can reasonably invest in "just one little thing". Then when you've reached your official limit, you can just say "Nope, I'm at my limit. No more just one more things!"