The problem with ‘Public Viewings’

This evening millions of Germans will be glued to their TV screens to watch the liebe Nationalmannschaft take on Portugal in their first game of this year’s World Cup. And many thousands more Germans will be watching with their friends and fellow countrymen at ‘Public Viewings’ – that’s big screens to you and me.

I was reminded of this annoying Denglishism while in Germany last week. The concept of ‘Public Viewings’ really caught on during the 2006 World Cup, hosted by Germany. Back then the term was reserved for large, open spaces – usually city squares – with giant screens erected in them (see the Stuttgart one to the right). Unsurprisingly, the idea was a massive success and now even German pubs have ‘public viewings’ in their beer gardens. But the term itself has always grated on me.

While the term ‘public viewing’ does exist in English, on both sides of the Atlantic, we tend to use it for more negative purposes – like the public viewing of a casket. Think of all those family tragedies in The Sopranos. As a Brit, it also brings to mind gruesome old tales of public hangings and the heads of traitors being displayed on spikes outside the Tower of London.

What Germans really mean is ‘public viewing area’ – which, in British English, still isn’t really right (we’ll stick with big screens, thank you). The US, however, seems to have plenty of public viewings areas at airports and construction sites, locks and dams – and even at some sports venues. Sometimes one little word really matters.

So remember, if you’re ever in Germany and you see a sign for a public viewing, please don’t let the horrible name put your off. They’re actually quite good fun.

Icelandic: a funny old language

I recently returned from a short break in Iceland. There were so many things that fascinated me about this beautiful country. For one, it’s home to just 320,000 people – two-thirds of which live in the Reykjavik area. To be honest, though, it’s a wonder anyone manages to live there at all.

Most of the country is completely uninhabitable. And even those places that are liveable are located in the shadows of active volcanoes or on unforgiving, albeit stunning, stretches of coast.

Another fascinating thing is the people. With everyone speaking near perfect English, Icelanders are one of the most tourist-friendly folk I’ve ever come across. They’re also fiercely proud of their country and its history, and love to tell you stories about when Iceland was first settled by Scandinavians and their Celtic slaves (sorry, wives).

Another thing Icelanders take great pride in is their language – something that struck me immediately on leaving London with Icelandair. The headrests, napkins, coffee cups: everything on board features a little bit of Icelandic. I thought it was a lovely touch, even if the some of the terms did seem a bit lost in translation

I was amazed to learn that Icelandic is the closest living relative to Old Norse – the language of the Vikings. In fact, it’s changed so little since Iceland was settled in the 9th century that today’s Icelanders can still read and understand literature from way back then. That’s crazy. I mean, imagine being able to read Beowulf without getting a degree in Old English first.

This photo, taken at the wonderful Reykjavik 871±2 exhibition, features a poem by warrior and poet (?!) Egill Skallagrίmsson. The Old English translation shows how similar the two languages were – but of course, it bears little resemblance to the English we speak today.

Another thing I love about Icelandic: as in German, it’s completely normal to string lots of little words together to create a monster. So I’d like to leave you with this tongue-twisting 64-character beast, which is (supposedly) Iceland’s longest word.

“Vaðlaheiðarvegavinnuverkfærageymsluskúraútidyralyklakippuhringur – a ring on the key chain for the outer door of the tool storage shed used by road workers on Vaðlaheiði hill.”

‘Hot. Cool. Yours.’ Another #Sochiproblem

Like many people, I was a little disappointed to learn that the slogan for the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympic Games is ‘Hot. Cool. Yours.’

Historically, Olympic slogans have always been a little cheesy (Beijing’s ‘One world, one dream’ was spectacularly so). But as an old colleague pointed out, Sochi's is more reminiscent of a Nando’s promotion than one of the biggest events on the sporting calendar.

So what lies behind these three words that are now plastered all over Sochi’s Olympic venues, and our TV screens? This old media release explains how the slogan was conceived:

“The slogan is made up of two parts: one dynamic (changeable) and one constant. It is intended to reflect the national character of Russia and the values of the Sochi 2014 brand, as well as Sochi 2014’s progressive and innovative approach to the organization and staging of the Games.”

(At least Russia is progressive in some respects then.) The release goes on to break down each component – just in case you aren’t sure what they mean by ‘hot’, ‘cool’, and ‘yours’. But the best part is this:

“The dot after each word draws a parallel with high technologies (.ru) and the emblem of the Winter Games in Sochi.” 

Erm, okay. Another indication of how progressive the host country is then.

In the organising committee’s defence, coming up with an Olympic Games slogan is an extremely tough nut to crack. Nothing is subject to more intense scrutiny than the Olympics and Paralympics – as media coverage in the run-up to Sochi 2014 has (rightly) shown.

But I think this slogan is symptomatic of a wider, global problem – one that I’ve come across many times in my experiences of translation.

All too often, non-native speakers think you can simply string together a few English words to make a great slogan. Buzz words like ‘your’ and ‘yours’ are used a lot to make something sound personal, but come off sounding a little forced and creepy.

And this has been going on for some time. A 2004 study by Hanover University revealed that the words most used in German advertising were: wir (meaning ‘we’), Sie (‘you’), mehr (‘more’), Leben (‘life’) and the English word ‘your’. I’d bet that ‘your’ has moved up a few places since then too.

I’ve no doubt that, to the average Russian, the slogan ‘Hot. Cool. Yours’ sounds pretty, well, cool. But sadly, to us native speakers it just sounds pretty, well, rubbish.

Railspeak urgently needs an update

If, like me, you were trying to get somewhere in the UK by train this Christmas, no doubt getting there was a nightmare. Of course, nobody could help the bad weather (although it does seem we Brits suffer from amnesia when it comes to our country’s erratic climate).

But what did strike me – as it often does – was the complete inability of rail operators to communicate what was happening in clear, comprehensible English.

I quickly learned that Twitter was the best way to keep up with First Great Western services (or so I thought – turns out they’re actually quite selective when it comes to which vital updates they choose to share). But even the stuff they did put out in the Twittersphere seemed like a foreign language:

“The disruption between Eastleigh/Southampton Central and Havant have been cleared. Residual delays expected.”

Never mind the incorrect verb agreement – don’t you just hate residual delays? They hang around like a bad smell, reminding you that you’re going to be late for everything. And what about this:

“Owing to signalling problems between London Paddington and Reading some lines are blocked. Updates to follow.”

The phrase “owing to” leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I mean, who even says that? “Owing to the fact we have no sausages, it’s bacon butties for tea”? The sole purpose of this phrase is to absolve FGW of any blame. Funny though – those pesky signalling problems are always gate crashing rail passengers’ parties, usually after a night of engineering works. And “some lines” isn’t really useful information. I don’t remember any updates following either.

Of course, none of this nonsense is new. But how nice would it be if rail operators put a little more thought into making their communications more transparent this year? Understanding how you’re going to get from A to B shouldn’t be as mind boggling as doing a Rubik’s cube.

If you’d like to read more, check out this 2011 Guardian article on railspeak, which quite rightly compares it to Orwell’s Newspeak in Nineteen Eighty-Four.