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Happy Valentines Day! Per Plato “At the touch of love, everyone becomes a poet.” Valentine’s Day seems good reason to cite poetically….

Love is the poetry of the senses.  ~Honoré de Balzac

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McElroy Profile –
Dolly Dearner, Ph.D. – French Translator

I studied French and German in high school, and thought that languages were the most interesting subject imaginable. Shortly before I started to college (in 1966, University of Louisville, class of ’70), I got the idea I would really like to be a translator, but of course had no idea how one would go about this. Before the first semester started, my Dad sat me down and had a talk with me to see what I was doing and what my plans were. At that point, I did not have a major picked out, but had a few possibilities. One was to major in foreign languages and become a translator. He said “Well, in a few years that will all be done by computer.” Fortunately, I did not listen to him, and anyway, who listens to their Dad’s advice when they are 18? Another option at the time was theater, and his advice was the only way to get good parts was by sleeping with the director (I did not take that path so did not have the opportunity to test his theory). I think he thought my best bet was to be a teacher.

After majoring in French at University of Louisville (where I also studied Italian and Russian [yes, 3 years of Russian as an undergraduate, but don’t ask me to translate it!]) I went to graduate school at Cornell and majored in Romance Linguistics. In the summer between undergraduate and graduate school, I crammed in a year of Portuguese, which I continued at Cornell. I had had private lessons in Spanish in middle school, and did a little of that at Cornell, plus more Portuguese and a whole bunch of French and Italian. One of my stated goals before I started graduate school was to learn all 5 of the major Romance languages, but I really didn’t know how I could learn Romanian. As luck would have it, in my third year of graduate school, we got a Romanian teacher and I took one year of Romanian (it was fairly intense; as I remember, we met 5 days a week).

After I completed my required course work at Cornell, I moved to the much warmer climate of Austin, where I worked at a menial job at UT while finishing up my dissertation. I lived in an apartment at 2100 Rio Grande. Quite by chance, a friend mentioned casually that the house at 2102 Rio Grande (which had no sign in the yard) was a translation agency. I nearly fainted! I thought about this for some time, then got up some nerve (in the words of Lady Macbeth, screwed my courage to the sticking point) and went next door, knocked, and stepped inside, where I found Eleanor and Doris at their desks. I said something like “Is this a translating agency?” and they said “Yes.” I said that I would be interested in working for them. They were polite but not particularly interested, and asked me what languages I knew. So I said “French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and Romanian.” When I said “Romanian,” it was as though they were struck by lightening. They both sat up and said “Romanian!?!” Then one of them opened a drawer and pulled out a bunch of papers and handed it to me. Apparently they had a Romanian job to be translated and had not been able to find anyone to do it. So they handed it over and I took it home with me. I had only a couple of little dinky Romanian dictionaries, but found another big one in a library at UT, and labored through this document, doing my translation on yellow legal paper with a pencil (I am not making this up). I continued doing Romanian articles (this was in 1974), and a few months later, the translators doing most of the French and Italian work moved away, so I grabbed those languages. Portuguese and Spanish kind of fell into place after that, although I did not do a lot of Spanish at that time because there were plenty of other Spanish translators. For about another year or so, I mostly worked at home (on my Smith-Corona typewriter). At some point I started coming in to the office regularly and usually had enough work to keep me there all day, pecking away on the IBM Selectric (which I thought was a real godsend).

Well, to talk in clichés, the rest is history, with a lot more details that I won’t bore you with. I have continued translating all that time, even when I held other jobs. I am happy to say that translating now keeps me occupied full time (sometimes more), and I hope that my Dad was wrong and the computers won’t replace me before I retire at 70 (I am also happy to say that is not in the near future).

McElroy Translation appreciates the business of the following clients and announces the anniversaries of these client relationships:

15 Years

• Christie Parker and Hale
• Cabot
• Drucker and Sommers (now Fulwider Patton Lee Utecht, LLP)
• Howson & Howson

10 Years

• Genentech
• Santen

5 Years

• Presto Products Company
• Texas Association of Realtors

Malaysia

The People

Malays are proud of their country, their ancestral background and their economic success. Ethnic tensions exist between Malays (60%) and Chinese (31%) over preferential quotas. Chinese feel these policies make them second-class citizens; Malays support these policies, which they feel are their only way to overcome traditional dominance. The Chinese dominate the business community and live in urban areas, while ethnic Malays generally inhabit rural areas.

Meeting and Greeting

• Shake hands with men at business meetings and social events. Shake hands again when leaving.
• Nod or give a slight bow when greeting a woman or an older person. Introduce higher ranking people or older people first. Introduce women before men.
• Western women should greet Malay men with a nod of their head and a smile.

Body Language

• Never touch anyone on the top of the head (home of the soul), especially a child. Avoid touching anyone of the opposite sex. Affection is not shown in public.
• Use your right hand to eat, pass things and touch people. Do not pass objects with your left hand. Do not move objects with your feet or point at another person with your foot.
• Giving a slight bow when leaving, entering or passing by people means, “excuse me.”
• A smile or laugh could mean surprise, anger, shock, embarrassment or happiness.
• It is impolite to beckon adults.
• Single fingers are not used for gesturing.
• Hitting your fist into a cupped hand is obscene.
• Hands in pockets signify anger.

Corporate Culture

• Business cards are generally exchanged after an introduction.
• Westerners are expected to be punctual for social occasions and business meetings. Call if you are delayed. Do not get frustrated if a Malay is late or your business meeting does not begin on time.
• Business counterparts will want to get to know you personally before doing business with you.
• Decisions are made slowly. Patience is required. Malays will probably involve you in polite conversation for a lengthy period before getting down to business. Discussions will be long and detailed.
• A letter of introduction from a bank or a mutual acquaintance will help establish a business relationship. Without an introduction, your request for a meeting might be ignored.
• Once an agreement is reached, don’t be surprised if counterparts try to renegotiate, even after a written agreement has been drafted. Malays view written contracts as less important than personal trust. Expect requests for escape clauses.
• Malays will pressure you to make concessions, but won’t give up much themselves in the beginning of negotiations. Plan on several trips.
• Malays admire good etiquette and do not appreciate bluntness. They are polite and go for the soft sell.
• Listen carefully to Malays. They will avoid saying things directly. You must learn to read between the lines.

This “author unknown” e-mail recently landed in the e-mail inbox of one a McElroy employee. Our clients are sophisticated in their approach to langauges and recognize the value of communicating in native voice. The idea that an “English only” existence is acceptable is outdated. We can also forever bury the notion that English is a superior language that is logical to learn. Keep reading…..

Why English is so hard to learn

If you ever feel stupid, then just read on. If you’ve learned to speak fluent English, you must be a genius! This little treatise on the lovely language I share is only for the brave. Peruse at your leisure, English lovers. Reasons why the English language is so hard to learn:

1. The bandage was wound around the wound.
2. The farm was used to produce produce.
3. The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.
4. We must polish the Polish furniture.
5. He could lead if he would get the lead out.
6. The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.
7. Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.
8. A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.
9. When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.
10. I did not object to the object.
11. The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
12. There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.
13. They were too close to the door to close it.
14. The buck does funny things when the does are present.
15. A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.
16. To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
17. The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
18. After a number of injections my jaw got number.
19. Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.
20. I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
21. How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?

There is no egg in eggplant, nor ham in hamburger; neither apple, nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren’t invented in England, or French fries in France. Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren’t sweet, are meat. Quicksand works slowly. Boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea, nor is it a pig. And why is it that writers write but fingers don’t fing, grocers don’t groce and hammers don’t ham? If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn’t the plural of booth beeth? One goose, 2 geese.