Tootle Your Horn with Vigor

Posted on August 11, 2012 by Kathy

Many people will recognize “tootle your horn” as a weirdly wonderful translation, from Japanese to English, of an admonition to drivers. When one translates from one language to another, normal usage sometimes falls by the wayside, and screwy translations result. (Find more funny examples here.) In my last post, I wrote about the pitfalls of translating English into Latin tattoos, permanently inscribing grammar mistakes onto the skin. Adding to those examples, I have a Latin tattoo story of my own to share.  

Derek Jacobi with Henry

A few years ago, a grad student at Case Western Reserve University I’ll call Steve emailed a colleague of mine at Cleveland State for help with translating some favorite lines into Latin for a tattoo. My colleague was sick and passed the email on to me. Questions immediately arise. CWRU has a classics department, so why did he contact a stranger at CSU? No answer to that one. The other questions I’ll leave till later.  

Here’s his original email.  

I have a rather strange request for you. I am getting a tattoo of a well known phrase from a Shakespeare play (Henry V) in Latin and I want a professional to verify for me that this is in fact correctly translated. I am getting this phrase in Latin: “We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;  For he to-day that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother.” 

Based on what some of my friends have told me, this is roughly (I use this term loosely) what it is in Latin: “Nos pauci, nos gauisus pauci, nos manus manus of frater; pro is ut-dies ut effundo suus cruor me vadum exsisto meus frater.” 

Forgive me if this is an embarrassing attempt at the classical language!  

Readers may recognize the English lines as part of the famous St. Crispin’s Day speech, in which Shakespeare’s Henry V urges his troops on to battle the French. If, by the way, you’ve never seen the 1998 film version directed by and starring Kenneth Branagh, I recommend it. Great music, too.  

Anyway, as my CSU colleague said, “Where to start?” It should be evident to anyone that “manus manus of frater” is not good Latin, because “manus” should not be repeated and, more obviously, “of” is not Latin. Most people would, I believe, recognize “of” as an English word. Which makes one suspicious of Steve’s so-called friends helping him with the translation. 

Quite likely, Steve’s friend was Google Translator or one of its similarly inept cousins. The nouns and adjectives don’t agree, and the verbs don’t have the proper endings. The Latin word for “today” is “hodie.” The online translator couldn’t decipher “to-day” with a hyphen and and translated it as two separate words, “ut-dies.” In short, it’s not even a rough (I, too, use the term loosely) translation. It’s nonsense. I re-translated the passage as well as I could for Steve and then couldn’t help asking. What’s the point of a Latin translation, even a correct one? He responded thusly: 

Thank you for your help. I greatly appreciate it. Well that particular part of that speech in Henry V really just hits hard for me and I get a lot of meaning out of it. I guess getting it in English would seem to ‘cheapen’ it (to me at least) and so I thought Latin would be an appropriate alternative. What are your thoughts?    

Here is my reply, which I made as calm and reasonable as I could:

Well, it’s interesting. Shakespeare is Shakespeare, after all. The reason those lines are so famous and effective is because of the way Shakespeare wrote them. He’s pretty much the gold standard in English. The Latin translation is a literal one which doesn’t convey the sound of the English poetry, and none, of course, of the context of the play.

Steve never responded.

I kind of get, actually, why people think Latin looks elegantly mysterious on their skin. But I wanted to convey to Steve as kindly as possible how idiotic I felt this enterprise was. Shakespeare’s words, Shakespeare’s brilliant English words, moved him to begin with. In what universe is “manus fratrum” an improvement on “band of brothers”?

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Ad Astra Per Errores Multos

Posted on August 7, 2012 by Kathy

Caleb’s Crossing by Gwendolyn Brooks, a recent selection of my book group, concerns young Puritans in early America, growing up and getting educated. The Latin they were studying contained a number of errors, showing exceeding carelessness, I thought, on the part of the author. Latin is maddeningly fussy about case endings and verb forms, but, really, why not just get a Latin teacher to advise you?

Latin depends on inflections–the changes made to words–to make meaning, so that in the sentences The boy kisses the girl and The girl kisses the boy, for example, the forms of the nouns boy and girl have to change in order for the sentence to work. When my students write a sentence with incorrect forms, I say, “I can’t translate it.”

Some websites record the sad errors that Latin tattoos often reveal. People imagine that Latin makes their tattoo extra elegant, and I’ve received requests to help wiser tattooees get their carvings correct. But the gibberish permanently inscribed on many people’s bodies shows evidence of notably unreliable internet translators. The profound sayings, alas, make no sense.

Vos Quod Mihi, a simple phrase cited on the website Classical Turns, is probably supposed to mean You and Me (which would have been pithy and effective in English, no?). Instead, the garbled Latin says something like All of you because for me. The vos messes things up from the start, because it connotes the plural you. Maybe the wearer means y’all, the only real English equivalent. Y’all because for me?

Even the prestigious Signals catalog, which appeals to the pretentious among us, contains a Latin error. Ad astra per alia porci, inscribed on a tee shirt, is supposed to say To the stars on the wings of a pig, reportedly John Steinbeck’s favorite humorous Latin saying (along the lines of to the heavens even with inadequate equipment). This faulty Latin is all over the internet. The correct Latin would be Ad astra per alas porci.

All the difference in alia versus alas. As written, the Signals tee shirt nonsensically proclaims To the stars through the others of a pig.

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Ignore Reviews, Except for This One

Posted on July 9, 2012 by Kathy

Women should see the new Pixar film, Brave, especially women with problematic relationships with their mothers, or, as my friends say, women. Girls should see it, too. That’s my opinion. (And it’s fun for men, too. At least my husband liked it.)

Others disagree. It’s gotten fairly good reviews, but lots of them are also patronizing or damning with faint praise. A New Yorker blurb writer, Bruce Diones, for example, calls the film “beautifully animated,” but then says it “holds together enough to thrill intermittently” and it’s “filled with standard into-the-woods adventures.” Maybe willo-the-wisps (I never knew what those were before) and witches who hawk their wood-carvings from their forest cottage are standard. I guess I just haven’t seen enough movies.

Pixar has made some of the best films of the last fifteen years. Not animated films, not children’s films, just films. All three Toy Story’s, Finding Nemo, WALL-E, and Up garnered great reviews and lots of money. These are among my favorite recent movies, with original stories, surprising wit, and great heart.

Now, employing a woman as one of the film’s directors and writers, it’s combined all these virtues with medieval Scottish (but archetypal) themes about mothers and daughters. If you’ve got some issues to work out with your mom, hie thee to the theater.

Then tell me what you think.

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Forgiveness

Posted on July 6, 2012 by Kathy

Forgiveness is giving up the hope that the past could’ve been any different.

I’ve heard this quote about forgiveness many times. It’s one of Oprah’s favorites and apparently originated with the Buddhist teacher and writer Jack Kornfeld. I’ve always thought it was catchy and probably wise, but it didn’t move me or have much effect on me.

Until last week, that is, when I read it again in Martha Beck’s Finding Your Way in a Wild New World, and all of a sudden, it made sense to me. I realized that holding on to hurt is a kind of wish. It’s a (futile) desire that what has happened didn’t happen. This tiny epiphany moved me, just a little, toward letting go of some grudges and hurts. At which I’m not generally skilled.

The thing is, I don’t think just hearing that line or telling it to someone “works.” I think you have to be ready to take it in, and that takes however long it takes.

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Plastic Progress

Posted on June 30, 2012 by Kathy

I just saw the film Surviving Progress at the Cleveland Institute of Art Cinematheque, which lays out many dangers to human survival on earth, graphically portraying overpopulation and over-consumption. It makes you want to read the book that inspired it, A Short History of Progress, by Ronald Wright, and to do something, just one little thing right away to help the environment.

Here’s a very small thing we can all do: use fewer plastic bags. In itself, this is not going to save the earth, but it’s doable, and it’s helpful. Right now, fewer than 5 percent of American consumers use their own bags. The U.S. alone consumes about 100 billion plastic bags every year. Maybe you’re already a plastic-boycotter. I’m a well-intentioned, inconsistent one.

When I was a kid, every store used paper bags. Nobody worried about dangerous leakage from carrying your frozen chicken in a paper grocery bag. Now, the people in front of me at the grocery store insist on an extra plastic bag or two to carry their items, and the clerks sometimes fuss over my lack of plastic. “Are you sure you don’t want your milk in a bag? How about your bag of potatoes?” Why, I wonder, do I need to put my bags inside other bags?

So, what’s the problem with plastic? For one, plastic poses a danger to wildlife. National Geographic says, “The success of the plastic bag has meant a dramatic increase in the amount of sacks found floating in the oceans where they choke, strangle, and starve wildlife and raft alien species around the world, according to David Barnes, a marine scientist with the British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge, England, who studies the impact of marine debris.”

In addition, plastic bags take 1000 years to break down, and they never really biodegrade. They sit in landfills or our oceans and lakes for centuries. You’ve seen them blighting our trees and landscapes. They’re everywhere. I snagged one blowing around my backyard yesterday. A few short decades ago, we got along fine without them.

Here’s what to do. Put a couple of tote bags from around your house (or cloth bags purchased from the store) in the trunk of your car. Then, you’ll have them with you when you stop at Target or the grocers. Remember (this is the hard part) to take them into the store with you. If you have no cloth bags, keep a couple of old plastic bags in the car to re-use.

You don’t have to be perfect. You’ll forget a lot of the time, but, gradually, you’ll start remembering to use your cloth bags. Clerks are much more cooperative about this than they were, even a few years ago. Sometimes, I used to get in an argument in the checkout line, because they didn’t think my bags were sanitary, or they just took offense for some reason. Now they usually fill up my disreputable bags without a peep.

Here’s another idea. If you’re just buying a tube of toothpaste, walk it out to your car and into your home with no bag. You can do it. Really.

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

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Truth in Jest

Posted on June 11, 2012 by Kathy

My dad, Martin Miller, wrote a weekly column for the Canton Repository, called “Letters from Max.” Sometimes he commented on news and politics, but other times he shared amusing facts about our household. I remember his commenting, for example, that our dog Abbie made a scratchy noise when she arose from sleeping, because the burrs in her coat made her stick to the carpet. At the time, I was always torn between feeling ashamed about our housekeeping peccadilloes (which were legion) and realizing that such problems were common, humanizing, and funny.

I’m reminded of my dad’s revelations because of my essay, “You’re Already Organized!”,  just posted on The Happy Woman, an online magazine parodying the relentless self-improvement advice in women’s magazines. My piece suggests that your home’s floors, chair cushions, and stairs provide excellent storage spots for your clutter.

Like my dad, I based this piece on real life. Around the time I wrote this, I had just ended a weeks-long “experiment” (as my husband resentfully called it), in which I left a newspaper on the living room floor, instead of picking it up, as I was wont to do. After several weeks, I pointed it out to my family. Nobody believed it had lain there that long, but I probably showed them the paper’s date to support my claim.

The useful space under the cushions of chairs and couches also had its basis in real life. When, at rare intervals, I cleaned these areas, I always found a TV Guide, assorted Cheerios and other snacks, and the occasional Pop-Tarts wrapper. In fact, once I actually pulled out a pristine, wrapped Hershey bar, as I say in the piece. People might think I was kidding.

Finally, the way upstairs became, in fact, the Bermuda Triangle I describe. Once my daughter was beside herself about a lost college application. There it was, in a stack of items on the stairs, intended for family members to take up to their rooms. Who knows how long it had lain there? That’s when I got the idea. If I ever really wanted to hide something–an illicit love letter (on the off chance I ever received one) or an exorbitant department store receipt–the stairs would be the place to put them. No one ever looked there.

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Measuring Education

Posted on June 8, 2012 by Kathy

I tutor once a week in a GED program in the Kinsman neighborhood of Cleveland, where my church used to be. I’ve been touched, the last two weeks, by my interactions with students. Touched, infuriated, sobered, and enlightened.

Last week, a young man showed me a problem he had missed on a worksheet: 3 feet = _____ inches. He’d written some crazy number in the blank. I said, “First, how many inches are in a foot?” He looked at me and said pointedly, “I don’t know. That’s why I missed it.”

I told him how many inches are in a foot. Then I got out a ruler. I showed him three rulers, in fact. I’ve been working at this program for years and assumed I had no illusions about the sorry education these folks had received before they dropped out of school. This incident, however, got to me. How do you get to be a young adult in America and not know how many inches are in a foot? This is a bright kid, with no evident learning disabilities.

Yesterday, I worked on science with another young man. We were reading a passage about Gleevec, a cancer drug. He stopped to ask me if I smoked and then told me he was thinking about quitting since seeing those especially grisly and effective TV messages currently airing, showing people recovering from cancer and chemo.

He asked me a bunch about cancer. I realized as we talked that he has no concept of what the disease really is and probably lacks a concept of the cell, which, if you ever try to explain cancer to someone, you realize is pretty important to the whole matter. It reminded me of the excellent The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. In that book, the relatives of the woman whose cells have contributed to treatments for all kinds of diseases have no idea what a cell is. They’re lacking the basic knowledge that would help them understand how to deal with the medical establishment.

No surprise that life is unfair. Sometimes, though, injustice smacks you in the face. My GED students know a lot that I don’t know, it’s true. Many of them are, no doubt, blessed with more native intelligence. But my middle-class background dumped a huge heap of privilege in my lap–easy access to knowledge, good reading skills, basic math intelligence–that I did nothing to earn or deserve.

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Oh, How I Hate to Get Up

Posted on May 25, 2012 by Kathy

In my childhood, my family owned one ball glove. With three girls, there was little need for more. When I played catch outside with my dad, I’d wear the glove, and he’d risk the softball stinging his fingers. He’d call out directions–coaching–pointing out how the ball should land in the pocket of the glove, not at the tip. Alternating grounders, line drives, and fly balls, he’d call out encouragement: “You can get that one!”

I never became an athlete. I never played any regular softball, only occasional, co-ed, pick-up games. But I did become a parent, and I spent lots of time in our front yard, on our tiny, makeshift ballfield, with worn patches of dirt serving as bases, pitching wiffle balls to my two kids and the neighborhood friends.  In our driveway and at the park, I played catch with my kids, alternating ground balls, line drives, and fly balls.

What activities did I do with my mom? I’m thinking.

She didn’t play outside. She didn’t swim or walk or throw. She cooked alone. When I cooked or baked, my shoulders would tense in the expectation of her disapproving look or trivial criticism. We didn’t sew or shop or play music or go to movies or the park or read or do my homework together.

Sometimes, as I got older, I’d add to the Saturday Review Double-Crostic that my parents completed every week and feel good and grown up about my contribution. I played Scrabble and bridge with my parents, but my mom’s criticism was always threatening there, too. Taking her spot on the Scrabble board and missing a signal in bridge would provoke a bitter sigh.

Here’s one warm memory, but it’s not unmixed with embarrassment and even resentment.  In the morning before school, my mother would wake me. I’ve always hated waking up. Eventually, until probably fifth or sixth grade, she’d start to get me dressed while I still lay in bed. She’d slip socks on my feet and begin sliding off my pajamas, often singing at the same time.

“Oh, how I hate to get up in the morning! Oh, how I’d love to remain in bed! For the hardest blow of all is to hear the bugler call, You got to get up! You got to get up! You got to get up this morning!”

Other times she’d regale me with, “K-K-K-Katy! Beautiful Katy! You’re the only g-g-g-girl that I adore!”

It’s a warm memory, as I said. I felt her affection, but mixed, even in those warm moments, with something else. I knew that I was letting my mom treat me like a baby. I intuited that she wanted me to be a baby, and a part of me didn’t like it. On some of those mornings, she’d say how sorry she was to see me grow up and how much she wanted me to stay little. I knew that, in spite of myself, I was always making her feel bad. I felt imbued with her fathomless regret.

I never told my kids that I hated seeing them grow up. Maybe they wouldn’t have minded, but I never allowed myself to say it.

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Small World

Posted on May 22, 2012 by Kathy

My friend Katie sat across from me at our picnic table. She was dropping off some homemade lentil soup and a loaf of bread a couple weeks after the death of Grace, my husband’s stepmother. Grace was memorable—opinionated, funny, and fashionable into her late ‘80’s, an aficionado of spike heels and sequined purses, a gourmet cook—and my friends had heard all about her in the fifteen years she’d been married to my father-in-law Stan.

“We were having dinner with my brother-in-law Hilary,” Katie began suddenly, bursting with a story to tell.

“Hilary was telling us that he’d been happy to see his sister recently. She lives in North Carolina, and she’d come to Ohio for a funeral for someone on her husband’s side of the family.”

Katie and her husband listened to Hilary’s story. No connections yet. Then he said something that caught their attention.

“He said it would have been nice to know the relative who died. She was a character, apparently. At her calling hours, visitors had to wait in a long line to see the family, and all around the rooms where they waited were displays of this woman’s shoes—dozens of fancy, high-heeled shoes.”

Katie and her husband shouted in unison, “You’re talking about Grace!”

Eventually all was explained. Hilary’s youngest sister is married to one of Grace’s grandchildren (by her first marriage), who came to Ohio for her husband’s grandmother’s funeral. For Grace’s funeral.

But how, Hilary asked Katie, did you know who I was talking about? Easy, said Katie and her husband. It’s about the shoes. We know all about Grace’s shoes.

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Finally

Posted on May 18, 2012 by Kathy

School’s out. A big perk of college teaching is the early end of the school year. We’ve had beautiful weather this week, and I’ve already planted tomatoes and flowers.

I had a good school year with lots of wonderful students and interesting, gratifying interactions. But it was a stressful one, too, with a nasty cheating incident and a number of especially needy student types. I’m decompressing.

This paean to summer must be galling to all you who work all year. I’m sorry. Summer is a great big gift of time that I try mightily to appreciate.

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