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.

Bidialectalism

I learned something interesting from The Jonathan Ross Show the other day, or at least indirectly through one of the guests – Gillian Anderson of X-Files fame. She's American. So I was a bit confused that she sounded more British than me (my West Country twang always lets me down). 

A quick Google search reliably informed me that she’s “bidialectal”, dahling. Yes, this word really does exist! Or at least it does Stateside…I couldn’t find a definition in the Oxford Dictionary online, but Merriam Webster came up trumps:

BIDIALECTALISM: facility in using two dialects of the same language (also: the teaching of Standard English to pupils who normally use a nonstandard dialect).

It seems most bidialectal celebrities, Gillian Anderson included, moved from one English-speaking country to another at a young age, and adopted their new (now perfect) accent in an attempt to fit in.

Perhaps the most bizarre example of a bidialectal actor is John Barrowman, who was born in Glasgow to Scottish parents but grew up in Illinois. Here’s a compilation of clips showing how he can quite naturally flit between the two (it’s interesting but I suggest you only watch the first few minutes – whoever put this film together is clearly a massive John Barrowman fan).

 

Do you shop at Leedle?

A friend recently asked how I pronounce the name of the German store Lidl. My initial response was, “Liddle, of course”. But then I remembered that in Germany they say “Leedle” – so that’s what I use when I’m over there.

This threw up the question of whether we English speakers should pronounce foreign words exactly as they’re spoken in their native language. For me, the answer’s no – not necessarily.

After all, surely the main purpose of pronunciation is to make both speaking and comprehension as easy as possible, whichever language we're talking in?

Just take the automotive brand Volkswagen. On the off chance a non-German speaker manages to pronounce this the German way – so pholks-va-gen (apologies to linguistics buffs for my poor phonetic spelling) – would you understand them immediately? Possibly not.

Fact is, people are generally quite lazy and don’t want to have to go out of their way to pronounce or understand a word. And this isn't just an English thing. In the UK we pronounce IKEA, Sweden’s greatest export, as i-keeya. In Germany it’s ee-keeya. But my friend Kira, a native Swedish speaker, tells me this:

“We would say ee-ke-a, no ‘y’ sound, with the ‘k’ sounding like the french ‘que’ and the ‘a’ like the german ‘a’.”

So neither English nor German speakers pronounce it the 'right' way. But I don’t think it really matters. The main thing is that we make ourselves easily understood (it's about good old audience centricity again). And if altering the way we pronounce a word helps us to do that, all the better.

But let’s please not start changing the way we write things because of the way we pronounce them – “I should of paid more attention in school” just isn’t right or cool.

We've been burglarized!

Don't panic, we haven't really. But I find writing this strange Americanism – let alone saying it aloud – amusing to say the least.

In the UK, we know this word as BURGLED. That's what a 'burglar' does. He burgles. For example: "Man, 62, burgles old lady's house and steals her purse."

My husband raised a good point yesterday (having just become a British citizen, I think he's finally starting to see the faults in American English aka 'the light'). He asked, why does a burglar burglarize if a shopper doesn't shopperize and a driver doesn't driverize?

I agree. A terrorist terrorizes... so the noun would have had to be 'burglarist', wouldn't it?

Who knows where it came from. Sometimes language has no logic.

All I do know is that I'm not a fan of this weird 'burglarize' word and don't appreciate it being used this side of the Atlantic, thank you very much Daily Mail. Even if you do change the suffix to the British '-ised', you're still not getting it past me.

In case you're interested, here's a little more background on these two words

Up close and personal

For me the thing that makes the most difference to a piece of copy, besides using plain English that Joe Public can understand, is how personal it is. I’m not talking ‘have you ever shaved your back’ personal. I just mean being warm and direct.

Today I received my weekly newsletter from Innocent smoothies. Like a lot of people, I’m a sucker for their copy (speaking of which, there’s a funny story below about an interview I once had – not with Innocent I hasten to add*). I don't even buy their smoothies.

Anyway, the subject line of the email was ‘The Amelia edition’, which had me hooked immediately. Who was this mysterious Amelia? Well, turns out she’s just some girl from Brighton who tweeted a few weeks ago about wanting to be in an Innocent newsletter.

Innocent didn’t blow the trumpet about it. They just added a few lines up top letting people know who Amelia was. Just so happens it also gave them something to focus the edition on (the Innocent newsletter is never really about Innocent stuff – it’s an eclectic mix of random facts and stories).

Thing is, they don’t actually write about Amelia from Brighton in the newsletter. Instead they write about famous Amelias in general, with a few other bits and pieces. But after reading it, I still came away with a fuzzy feeling inside and thinking to myself ‘isn’t that a nice idea’.

Sometimes, to make a piece of copy personal, all you have to do is let the reader know you’ve thought of them. Or that you’re thoughtful full stop. It’s not rocket science, but it’s something so many organisations still fail to do. All too often companies write about what they want to say – not about what their readers are interested in.

*Story about an interview I once had: Third or fourth question in, CEO asks me, “How would you describe a trip to Burma in the style of Innocent smoothies?” I’m sorry, but really? I’ve never even been to Burma before! And wouldn't this guy rather that his company have its own unique tone of voice, instead of just copying Innocent? I knew there and then that I’d turn down the job even if they offered it to me. Which they didn’t.

Herbstlaubtrittvergnügen

In typical British fashion I’m going to start this blog by referencing the weather. When I woke up this morning (one hour earlier than normal as the clocks had gone back), the skies were blue and clear. Having been warned that ‘stormageddon’ is due to make landfall tonight, we decided to make the most of the sunshine and take a walk in Greenwich Park. As we were walking, I felt a sudden burst of what can only be described as Herbstlaubtrittvergnügen – a joy of kicking through piles of leaves.

Unfortunately, this isn’t a real word. It’s something that Ben Schott made up in his new book ‘Schottenfreude: German Words for the Human Condition’ – you can read (and listen to) excerpts from the book here. For a language geek like me, this book is a dream. One of my favourite things about German is the way you can just tack words together to create whole new words. The 63-letter long Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz is a prime (pardon the pun) example of this, though unfortunately it ceased to exist earlier this year.

Herbstlaubtrittvergnügen prompted me to do a bit more research on ‘untranslatable’ words (and by that I mean words that don't have a one-to-one match – all words can be translated, of course). Two of my favourites on this list are the Inuit word iktsuarpok, which is the sense of anticipation that makes you go outside and check to see if anyone is coming, and the Spanish term sobremesa, which means to hang around after a meal and chat to the people you ate with.

I think it’s interesting that these cultures felt the need to create these words in the first place. The Inuit people live in very remote areas, and probably don’t get that many visitors – so I imagine the sense of anticipation they feel when they think someone’s coming to visit is indeed great. And we all know the Spanish are a very sociable lot who love their food. So sobremesa (literally ‘about the table’) is probably a national pastime.

It’s a bit like phubbing I suppose – words only ever come into existence if there’s a need for them. So next time you’re left wondering why there isn’t a word for something you’re trying to say, why not just make it up instead? 

He, she or they?

Reading this article the other day reminded me of one of my biggest bugbears. It’s when people are so afraid of discriminating that they insist on writing the clunky and awkward ‘he or she’ and ‘his or her’ rather than using ‘they’ and ‘their’.

But would you ever say that out loud? ‘I’ll phone the person at the shop, but I’m not sure he or she will have those fluffy giant pandas in stock?’ Or, ‘Everyone should bring his or her homework to class so that he or she can present it.’ No, probably not. So why write it?

Our language is constantly evolving, and with it our impression of what is ‘grammatical’. That's why the singular form of ‘you’ – ‘thou’ – was squeezed out some time ago and replaced by the plural ‘you’ (except for in some parts of Northern England and Scotland where ‘thou’ is still used, but that’s a different blog altogether). So what’s stopping us from using ‘they’ in the singular too?

We won’t be the first. As the Guardian article points out, great writers such as Shakespeare and Lewis Carroll weren’t afraid to use the singular ‘they’. And I found this in Oxford Dictionaries online:

“Some people object to the use of plural pronouns in this type of situation on the grounds that it’s ungrammatical. In fact, the use of plural pronouns to refer back to a singular subject isn’t new: it represents a revival of a practice dating from the 16th century. It’s increasingly common in current English and is now widely accepted both in speech and in writing.”

And with that ends my first sort-of-grammar rant. There will be more, I promise.

Then came the text messages

Here’s a (not so nice) little update on the ‘Go home’ debacle. Turns out the UKBA/Home Office has now sent 40,000 texts demanding that people leave the country. Of course, this has sparked outrage over how much the messages may have cost UK taxpayers. But for me the best (read ‘worst’) part is what the texts actually say:

“Message from the UK Border Agency. You are required to leave the UK as you no longer have right to remain.”

Apparently those who received the texts included several hundred people who have lived in Britain for decades and do have the right to remain. Can you imagine? If I got a text like this, my first thought would be ‘erm, how do they have my number?’ The second would be ‘why do they think it’s okay to talk to me like this?’ And then I’d promptly delete the message. It really does beggar belief that such a huge, important authority as the Home Office has made such a mess of this.

Phubbing: the birth of a word

I phub, and I expect you do too. On the bus, at home, in a bar. Everyone’s at it, phubbing.

If you’re wondering how a new, trendy word like this came about, watch this short video. Turns out McCann Melbourne made it up for the Macquarie Dictionary in Australia. With the help of a few experts, of course, including a cruciverbalist (that's someone who makes up crosswords for a living, duh). I love phubbing – the word that is. And I applaud such a clever marketing stunt.

NB: This blog does not in any way encourage phubbing at all. It is a very rude and bad bad thing – see this website for some terrifying stats if you don't believe me.

Go home and reconsider those ads

Last week I was relieved to read that the Advertising Standards Authority had banned the ‘Go home or face arrest’ ads sent out in London by the Home Office. But I’m baffled about why they aren’t considered ‘offensive and irresponsible’ – just ‘misleading’.

London is one of the most diverse and vibrant cities on the planet – something that anyone who lives here will tell you is one of the best things about it.

And of course illegal immigration isn’t good – but this is completely the wrong way to go about dealing with it.

Anyone with an ounce of sense can see these ads would only give nutters like the BNP more fodder, fuel tensions in local communities, and put the fear of god into immigrants – including some who are possibly fleeing horrors in their own country. How is any of that helpful?

But also, from a marketing perspective, since when was this type of manipulative messaging considered effective? Did the person who came up with the concept give thought to their audience and the situations some of them might be in? Or think about the wider repercussions of this sort of scaremongering? Did they even think at all?

Of course, this isn’t the only marketing blunder the Home Office has made of late – check out these posters in their Glasgow and Hounslow immigration reporting centres. They include uber-helpful messages like ‘The plane can take you home. We can book the tickets’. Fantastic stuff, isn’t it?

I’m glad that the ‘Go home’ posters have got the boot and won’t be rolled out to the rest of the UK. But it still worries me that someone even came up with the campaign, let alone signed it off. Sort it out Ms May.

Hats off to Romania

Remember all that hoo-ha about how Romanians and Bulgarians were going to come over and steal all our jobs once work restrictions were lifted? At one point there was even talk of the UK government advertising over there to counter immigration. Well, now Romania’s fighting back with this website, which encourages Brits to visit – or even set up home – in their country.

I think it’s a brilliant response. After all, how would you feel if the world suddenly started dissing your country and suggesting everyone wanted out?

My favourite feature of the site by far is the ‘More reasons to come over’. These include arguments like ‘Our draft beer is less expensive than your bottled water’, ‘Summer here lasts three months, not three hours’, and ‘We speak better English than anywhere you’ve been in France’.

Having been in Romania earlier this year, I can vouch for all these points. What’s more, the people there are really very nice. Okay, parts of Bucharest could do with a makeover and the country definitely has a stray dog problem. But given it was still under the leadership of a communist dictator until 1989, it has come a long way.
(FYI, apparently people were forced to abandon their dogs when old apartment buildings were torn down to make room for new high rises in the 1970s).

So I say we give Romania a break, and Bulgaria for that matter. And when you’re planning your next holiday, think about visiting there. The Transylvania forests are one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been.

Quite a word

I think it’s fair to say that ‘quite’ is quite a problematic word. At least it is if you’re one half of an Anglo-American couple.

My husband recently dropped the Q-bomb while we were at a friend’s house for dinner – in an attempt to compliment her on the meal. He said, “That was quite good”. Luckily she knew he meant well and we were able to laugh it off. But when I went to explain to him afterwards why ‘quite’ doesn’t work that way, I struggled.

I didn’t have to look far for a good answer. The Macmillan dictionary gives this explanation:

"In British English quite usually means 'fairly': The film was quite enjoyable, although some of the acting was weak. When American speakers say quite, they usually mean 'very': We've examined the figures quite thoroughly. Speakers of British English sometimes use quite to mean 'very', but only before words with an extreme meaning: The whole experience was quite amazing."

Anyway, all this got me thinking about all those other little misunderstandings we have. Sometimes it seems we’re speaking the same language, but we’re not. In British English, phrases like 'Yeah right' and 'Thanks a bunch' are really only ever used sarcastically and can cause offence – but in the US they’re genuine signs of agreement or gratitude.

And then there are those funny US expressions that sound downright inappropriate to us Brits. 'Fanny pack' (bum bag), 'double fisting' (to have a drink in each hand), 'give someone the stink eye' (evil stare)… the list goes on. My husband likes to call his English 'English 2.0' – though to some, these might sound like it's regressed! 

I'm sure this is something I'll blog about again. In the meantime, watch out people – the English language really is a minefield. And if you need anything transatlanticlated, this little Tumblr site set up by the Guardian’s New York office is nice.

Small things that make a big impression

While I was nursing my Pret coffee in front of my computer this morning, this little chunk of copy caught my eye.

I was already a big fan of Pret’s plain speaking, personable brand. But this napkin reminded me that even the smallest things can have a huge impact on how brands and products are perceived.

 

Plenty of other companies already do this (you’ve probably seen the cute little reminders about recycling and nuts on Innocent smoothie bottles) but more really should pay this kind of attention to detail.

So thank you Pret for making me smile this morning. I might just take you up on your offer next time a member of staff goes all “serviette-ish” on me, and throw an evil eye* their way.

* Interestingly Americans call this the ‘stink eye’. See my next post for more on British v US English.