I am American, not Irish!

 “On St. Patrick’s Day, everyone is Irish!”  Really?  Just what is Irish?  Is it the ruffian who flung his elbow in my face as he passed me in Killkenny?  Or is it the people named McGree who invited me to their home for dinner?  Is it the parish priest who let me look through church records?  Or is it the woman who smoked in the no-smoking car on the train back to Dublin.  Just like any other group, ethnic, religious, or skin hue, there are many different behaviors from the generous to the hateful.

One St. Patrick’s Day, my mother proclaimed that we were “Orange-Irish”.  I don’t think she had a clue.  If she knew the ancestry of my paternal grandfather, she certainly didn’t pass it on to me.  Neither did my German-born paternal grandmother.

From all the genealogical research I’ve done, it seems that the surname Magree, McGree, or MacGree comes from Ireland.  However, from all the genealogical research I’ve done, I have found no ancestor in my male line that was definitively born in Ireland.

The closest was my great grandfather, John J.R. Magree, who variously claimed to be born in Brooklyn or England.  In the last year or two I found that he was born in Liverpool of an American and a woman living in Liverpool.  Her name was Margaret Pope.  Her father was a customs officer, and so I assume she was not born in Ireland.

John James Richard Magree’s father was John Cornelius Magree, who generally went by John C. Magree.  I did find a record of his getting his seaman’s certificate in 1833 at the age of 15.  In the 1850 census he was listed first in a crew of a ship in New York or Brooklyn.   In 1851 he was the master of the ship Ivanhoe bringing about 400 immigrants from Liverpool to New York.  Most of the passengers were Irish.  I did not find a Margaret Pope or Margaret Magree in the passenger list.

I did link John C. Magree to his father twice.  John C.’s marriage document named his father as Vincent Magree.  The 1830 Census did list Vincent Magree’s household as containing a male about 12 years old.

With Ancestor,com, I can find no record other than these two of Vincent Magree.  I wonder if he (or others) anglicized his name from Vincenzo Magri to Vincent Magree.  I have found records where a Magri has also been named Magree.  It’s possible that my paternal line comes from Italy;  one relative told me that one of uncles looked “Spanish”.  I do know that I was one of the few “curly-haired” males in my family.

Just who are these “Irish” that the English of another time called a “race”?  We do know they were Celts who drove out another group.  Was this displaced group the “fairies”?  But then the Vikings came raping and pillaging.  After that another wave of Vikings came, but they were called Normans (Norse men).  But the Normans had settled in France, so are the Irish French?  Partly!  Names like Fitzpatrick come from the French Fils-Patrick, meaning son of Patrick.  Then the English came a-pillaging and taking land.  This invasion was so devastating that many Irish left for the Americas and Australia.

When the descendants of the Irish immigrants to Australia come to the United States, what do we call them?  Australians!

I do know that many grandchildren of people who immigrated to other countries are often labelled with their ancestry, but I don’t know if these labels persist for so many generations as they do in the U.S.  I enjoy springing the question “What nationality is the King of Sweden?”  By American reckoning he is French.  He is a descendant of one of Napoleon’s marshals: Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte!  Some often respond that Queen Elizabeth II is German.  She’s a descendant of Prince Albert of Saxony.

What are people who immigrate to the U.S. or their descendants called when they go back the “Old Country”?  Americans!   I read one Swedish novel where a man worked in Chicago for several years, came back to his home town, and was labelled as “American”.  I read another where a second-generation woman came back, could hardly speak Swedish, and was called “American”.

I was an “Ugly American” in Europe for six years.  If you read “The Ugly American” you know that he was the good guy in the local view and the “bad guy” in the expatriate community.  “The Ugly American” learned the language and customs of the host country, and he didn’t spend all of his time in the “country club” American community.

I worked on learning the languages of the countries I visited and used them both in speaking and reading.  A few others didn’t even make an attempt and were miserable.  In fact, one European colleague called me a “Northern European” because I worked at blending in.

But I can’t resist being the other kind of “Ugly American” in this country.  When someone says they are Swedish or Italian, I ask “Talar du svenska?” or “Parlai italiano?”  “Do you speak Swedish?” or “Do you speak Italian?”  Generally the response is either befuddlement or a negative reply.

So, this assumed descendant of some Irish immigrant won’t be drinking green beer on St. Patrick’s Day.  As much as he likes Guinness or Smithwick, he will probably be drinking a couple of glasses of Italian wine.  Sláinte or cin-cin!

Also printed in the Reader Weekly of Duluth, 2016-03-17 at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2016/03/17/6888_i_am_american_not_irish.

P.S. About green beer and other "Irish" fare, see http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/18/dining/corned-beef-and-cabbage-not-so-irish-historians-say.html.

Sprechen vous svenska?

Let me guess.  You may be one of those who claim to never have been good at foreign languages, but I bet you know the meaning of each of the words in the title of this article.  Not only that, you probably know which language each is from.

Maybe the reason you are “not good” at foreign languages is that you didn’t care for the way you were taught a particular language.  Maybe you rebelled at the way it was taught and didn’t let it soak in and use it.

I myself have had mixed feelings about each of my language experiences.  For example, I forgot almost everything I learned in high school Latin, but I retained enough of my two years of college French to read books, magazines, and newspapers and to have simple conversations.

The first time it was really important was when I transferred to Europe as a Univac employee.  Supposedly I was to move to Italy.  I got an Italian grammar book and started studying from it.  “Oh, wait, before you go to Italy you will spend several weeks in Basel, Switzerland.”  So, I got a German grammar book and started studying German.

I had all my travel arrangements made for me.  The last leg was a train from Zurich to Basel.  When I got to Basel, there was nobody to meet me.  Where do I go from here on a Saturday?  I knew we were to work at Sandoz, the big pharmaceutical company, and so I looked up Sandoz at a public phone.  When I reached Sandoz the guard spoke only German and French.  As best I could I explained my situation in French.  He said he would look up the Univac people in the computer room.  Within an hour or so one of the hardware guys came and got me.  It was only once I was in the hotel that I met the software guys I was to work with.

I have many anecdotes about learning German (Hochdeutsch) and Schweizer Deutsch, two different languages.  Ja jo! Wie goht’s!

One, I learned enough German to read some of the newspapers and to read the directions on starting the computer - drucken… (push…)

Two, I didn’t learn enough German to get in and out of East Berlin on my own.  The end story is that I had ten East German marks I was not supposed to leave with.  My Swiss companions were in a discussion with the guard behind the counter.  I kept swiveling my head towards whoever was speaking.  Finally, the guard looked at me and said, “Sprechen Sie Deutsch?”  I replied, “Nein!”  That cracked everyone up.  After I put my ten marks in the Red Cross jar, we were on our way out through Checkpoint Charlie.

When I finally arrived in Italy, I slowly learned more Italian.  It didn’t help that our work language was English.  I did start reading Italian newspapers and books and speaking Italian where I could.  I spoke it to my barber and I think I bought my car using Italian.  One difficulty was at some office where I wasn’t getting across to the clerks.  One exclaimed, “Questi stranieri!” (“These foreigners”).  I understood her, but I don’t remember if I made any reply.

After two years in Italy, I requested and got a transfer to Sweden.  Again I bought a grammar book or two and started reading newspapers.  Newspapers are wonderful for learning foreign languages because of the names and events in the news and the large number of similar words.  By my second year in Sweden, I disappointed a small group I was to supervise by stating that we would speak Swedish.  My rationale was they had many chances to speak English, I had few for Swedish.  After a year, many of my colleagues said I spoke “flyttande Svenska” (fluent Swedish), even those who didn’t report to me.  On the other hand, there were many who disagreed.

When I came back to the States, I decided to take German at a community college.  I added a couple more semesters when I returned to Minnesota.  Darned if I can remember much of what I learned in class.

This same phenomenon happened when I took Russian long before I left for Europe.  I still had notions of getting a PhD, and one of the requirements was to have some familiarity with two foreign languages.  I took a year of Russian in summer school.  I did B or better work, but I didn’t enjoy it.  The basis for each lesson was a short conversation we were supposed to memorize and recite with a classmate.  I’ll never forget the first sentence of the first conversation: “Привет Нина! Куда ви идёте?”  “Hi, Nina!  Where are you going?”  I didn’t go back for a second year.  For awhile my Russian handwriting was better than my English handwriting.  I still do recognize many Russian characters, but I have made no real effort to study Russian anymore other than look at the headlines on some online Russian newspapers.

Over the years I’ve put a little bit of effort into learning some bits and pieces of Finnish, Ukrainian, Greek, Dutch, Icelandic, Serbo-Croatian, Spanish, and Japanese.  I’ll finish this with my Japanese joke: “Watashi-wa nihongo-ga wakarimasen.”  I say it well enough that Japanese relatives laugh at the contradiction: “I don’t understand Japanese.”

If you’re over 50 and enjoy languages as much as Mel does, join him for “Jolly Polyglots” in the winter quarter of University for Seniors at UMD.

This was also published in the Reader Weekly, 2014-08-28 at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2014/08/28/3970_sprechen_vous_svenska

Altered states of consciousness

“Altered states of consciousness” has different meanings and values for different people.  Many think of the states induced by alcohol, marijuana, peyote, and a long list of other drugs.  Sometimes the alteration can be beneficial, either for relaxation or removing some blocks to a problem solution.  Sometimes the alteration can be detrimental and even deadly, not just to the partaker but others.  The too common example of detrimental is the drunk driver.

I have found the best ways to alter my state of consciousness are done without any exterior aids.  These are distraction, sleep, and meditation.

If I go away from a problem for a while the answer may “sneak up” on me.  One of my most common problems is forgetting names, something that seems to be occurring to me more and more.  If I see or talk to someone I may just draw a blank on their name.  The face and voice are familiar, but I just can’t think of the name.  Not always, but often, I think of the person’s name right after parting or an hour or a day later.

This reminds me of a definition given by my high-school English teacher:

Wit: That which someone else has at a party that you have on the way home.

But not all is lost in my memory.  I have memorized several songs in foreign languages: some languages I can speak or understand a few hundred words, some languages I have no idea what the words mean.  If I forget some of the words, I can often remember them again with a few runs-through with the score.

As I type these words, a cascade of thoughts, some distractive, some only slightly relevant, keeps popping up in my head.  As many Reader Weekly columns are a chat with the readers, I’ll pop in a few of these pop-ups every few paragraphs.

Where was I?  Oh, yes, songs in foreign languages.  Many people tell me, “I was never good at foreign languages.”  I often ask them if they know the chorus to the “Witch Doctor Song”.  I bet that chorus has now popped into your head with no additional clues.

Panic and frustration are distractions to clear thinking.  I couldn’t figure out where I put the sketchy notes for this column.  I searched all kinds of files.  I picked up scrap after scrap of notepaper.  Finally, my brain plowed through the panic to tell me to look in my folder of Reader Weekly columns.  I had been ignoring the file because its name included a future date!

Sleep can do wonderful things for our brains.  First, it just lets our conscious minds relax for a few hours.  Second, it lets our subconscious minds keep working on their backlog of problems.  Third, if we wake at the right time, it can provide solutions or misdirections that we hadn’t considered before sleep.  Fourth, it can let our brains go off in all kinds of impossible fantasies.

Recently I was working on some writing that wasn’t going well.  In the middle of the night I woke with some key sentences in my head.  I immediately wrote them down and easily went back to sleep.  Delightful surprise!  The sentences made sense in the morning and helped me complete the writing.

Conversely, those “illuminating” thoughts can be deceiving.  A few years ago I woke up in the middle of the night convinced a minister friend had died.  As far as I know, he is still alive.  Every so often there is a report of somebody having a premonition about something and that thought became reality.  But how often do people have premonitions that don’t come true; these probably far outnumber the former but rarely get reported.

Several years ago the Unitarian Church of Germantown (Pennsylvania) organized a large set of adult education classes.  We took at least two, both on the mind.  I think one was called “altered states of the mind” and the other “meditation”.

The first gave primarily a sense of relaxation.  I only remember three things about the class: a view of the room, a woman who said she always fell asleep during the exercises, and one particular exercise.  The leader “walked” us down a set of steps in a cave to a river.  A boat was there for us to board and float down the river.   Once in awhile I use this imagery to relax.

The second gave us exercises to get into a meditative state.  That is, our bodies would relax and our minds would go quiet for about twenty minutes.  The trick was to start relaxing at the top of our heads and let a flow of relaxation go down our bodies.  Once I got this technique mastered, my whole body would feel slightly numb.

The major distraction in the class was the teacher!  She encouraged those who believed they had previous lives to speak up.  She talked about the energy flow going around the circle.  One fellow often walked out at this point.  One time while sitting right next to her, I put in my mind the image of the devil statue from “The Exorcist” standing right between her feet.  The “energy flow” never stopped!

I’ll stop the writing now.  I’ll try meditating before I send this.

It sort of worked!  I slept a bit and I couldn’t get a kink out of one knee.  But I am much more relaxed!

This was also published in the Reader Weekly at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2014/01/23/2803_lies_damn_lies_and_misstatements-1. Someone forgot to change the headline.

Whatever happened to foreign students and foreign languages?

I wrote the above title and the text below in response to "On campus beat: University of Minnesota and EMC team up to teach world languages", Lydia Coutré, Star Tribune, 2013-06-25.  http://www.startribune.com/local/212860091.html  I submitted it as a letter to the editor, but the Strib did not publish it.  Apropos foreign languages, the Strib put the accent mark on Coutré's name.

When I was in college students coming from another country were foreign students.  They were welcomed by many and considered part of the student body.  I remember eating often with three Arabs whose conversation went beyond their complaints about Israel.

Now their grandchildren studying in the U.S. would be called "international students".  But if a student body at a U.S. school included students from other countries, wouldn't all the students be international students?

When I worked and lived in Europe, I wasn't an international worker but a foreigner.  I was called Ausländer, utlänning, étranger, straniero, and various forms of American.  And gaijin (outside person) when I visited Japan.

When I was in school and beyond, languages other than English were called foreign languages; now it is the fashion to call these other languages world languages, no matter how widely they are spoken.  I would consider only a handful of languages world languages; English, French, Spanish, Arabic, and Chinese are spoken in a large number of countries.  Swedish and Japanese would be local languages, spoken almost exclusively on a daily basis only in their countries of origin.

No matter what you call other languages, Lydia Coutré is right to point out that Americans are woefully illiterate in foreign languages.  We need to stop considering foreign languages a frill.  Being multi-lingual gets you friends, business, and security.  I wonder if there would have been fewer terrorists if our schools could have provided more Arab speakers.

There are no porches in Portugal…

and there are no gulls.

Well, I am sure many houses in Portugal have verandas or porches and many beaches have many gulls.

However, if you consider how many Americans pronounce the word Portugal and how the Portuguese pronounce the name of their country, you will understand my quip.

Many American pronounce the name of the country as Porch-uh-guhl or Porch-you-guhl where "uh" is the most frequent vowel in the English language, the schwa, an unaccented form of a short u.  Some may get closer to the Portuguese pronunciation with Porch-uh-gahl.

In the Google Translate (http://translate.google.com/#en/pt/portugese), the English speaker says POUR-chyu-gahl, but the Portuguese speaker says Por-tu-GAHL with the "l" held a bit longer.

Quote of the day: Our Education System

"Everybody is a genius.  But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid."
- Albert Einstein
Posted by a relative on Facebook from "Everyday Humor"

On the other hand, sometimes we are our own worst enemies for learning.  How many people do you know who say, "I was never good at…"  Consider most Americans image of their foreign language ability.  If you ask them what a Mexican calls a hat or an afternoon nap, most can correctly answer (fill in the blank).  Or how the French say "goodbye" or what a Swedish buffet is called, or …  I guess that most Americans know at least ten words in each of at least ten languages.  Da?

See "You can speak foreign languages".

The Impatient Outpatient

In mid-January I visited my primary physician for my annual physical.  Because my PSA shot up above 7, he recommended I see a urologist.   I had to wait until early March to see the urologist I've seen before.

When I saw him, he decided he wanted to take 20 biopsy samples, which means it would be done with anesthesia in a hospital rather than in his office.  So, that was scheduled in late March, at 5:45 in the morning.  But then he wanted me to see my primary physician for a pre-op.  I scheduled that for a few days before the biopsy surgery.  When I saw my primary physician, he didn't think there would be any problem.

But then he thought about it and because I have a heart valve blockage he thought I should see a cardiologist.  This was about two days before the scheduled surgery.  I couldn't see my cardiologist until the following week.  I notified the urologist's scheduler and she supposedly notified the hospital.

I think the hospital called a day or two before the surgery and I informed them of the delay.  At 6:15 of the morning of the original scheduled surgery, the hospital called asking why I wasn't there!

I saw the cardiologist the following Thursday.  He didn't see any reason I couldn't have the biopsy.  The risk of surgery to open my artery was greater than the risk of the biopsy.

I called urology scheduling and she "penciled" me in for April 10th.  At least this time I wouldn't miss a class. "Penciled" probably means entered in the computer system with a provisional note.  Surgery called me back a few days later and said I was scheduled for 8 in the morning.  A much more civilized time.

So no alcohol 24 hours before and 24 hours after.  I like my wine but I could give it up for a couple of days.  No breakfast on the day of surgery.  Now, that is hard to give up.  Only coffee, water, and clear juice.  At least I get a jolt of glucose with clear apple juice.

Off we go on Wednesday morning with my wife to keep me company and drive me home.

We get whisked into a small room with a hospital bed and a woman working on a computer in the other half of the room.  Hm!  Are they getting crowded for office space?  I'm given a gown, a robe, support hose, and cloth socks with sticky bottoms.  My wife looked at the last and said she should have brought those $125 socks from home; that's what was on the bill for her surgery a couple of years ago.

So, I'm just about ready to be trundled off to surgery.  We sit and wait.  My wife has a book, but I can't get into reading much.  I just sit quietly on the edge of the bed (gurney).  And we wait.  It's nine o'clock.  We hear there has been an emergency surgery.  That's certainly more important than my biopsy.  And we wait.

A guy is brought in on a gurney to recover from his surgery.  The woman working on a computer is his girl friend trying to catch up on work while waiting.

I play with words in my head and come up with "The impatient outpatient".  I tell it to a nurse and she just about cracks up.  She was my best audience; others smiled or shrugged.  Maybe they took it as a serious criticism.

Finally about ten o'clock I'm trundled out of the room in my bed.  I watch the ceiling lights flash by and chat with the nurse pushing me.  She places me in a curtained alcove.  The urologist comes by to check on me; his beaming face is a relaxant.  The anesthesiologist comes by and I ask him his name.  It's Muzzi.  "Parlai italiano?"  Boy, does he!  Not exactly like a native, but better conversation than I could make.  And he spoke slowly enough that we understood every word.  He learned it from his "nonna" (grandmother).  Next comes an anesthesiology nurse who heard some of the previous conversation and said he was "German" and asked me to use some German phrases.  In the course of these comings and goings, I rattled off a few phrases in other languages.  Was I entertaining the staff or were they distracting me?  While this last conversation is going on, the nurse puts an I.V. in me and starts a saline drip.  No big deal except the tube irritates the crook of my elbow a few times.

The surgery space becomes available and I'm moved two or three curtained spaces.  Daphne, another anesthesiology nurse, starts the drip of Propofol.  Hoo boy!  My arm feels like somebody is squeezing it everywhere.  Then somebody says, "Melvyn, wake up!"

I feel really tense and stretch everything I can.  But otherwise I am content to just lie there.  After a few minutes I again watch the lights flash overhead but I don't chat as much.  Back in the room.  Goodness, it's two o'clock.

I'm offered beverages and I choose water and apple juice, the latter again for the energy.  I feel better and better.  My bladder says its time to go down the hall.  I manage mostly on my own, but slowly and with a nurse at my elbow.

At about three I get permission to get dressed and go home.  The staff gives my wife time to bring our car to the front door and escorts me out.  Home we go and life returns to normal, sort of.

I was told I would learn the results in a couple of days.  Well, those couple of days were thrown into turmoil by the weather.  Duluth was hit by a heavy, wet snow fall and many activities were cancelled.  As of Sunday I have not been given a result.   My attitude is that I'm positive the results are negative.

Meanwhile, I've moved a lot of snow and slept well.  The worst side effect was a sore throat from the breathing tube that was put in my throat so I could breathe properly.  Today I feel I have some of my singing ability (whatever that means) back.

For the follow-up, see "I was right to be positive about a negative".

English speakers should be the best linguists

Read the following out loud:

With one statement he charred Charlene's character.

Anybody who has learned to deal with three different pronunciations of "cha" really should have the mental tools to learn bits and pieces of many languages.

Fun with computer translations

To make some small improvement in our Italian skills, we go to a monthly conversation group.  Each month, the organizer emails a reminder, and this last time she asked us to let her know if we'll be coming.

I can read Italian books and newspapers with so-so comprehension, but I have trouble coming up with the simplest everyday phrases, especially if they are not in the present tense.  So, I called on the friendly, knowledgable folks at Google Translate.

"We will be there" -> "Ci saremo"

That's OK, but do I want to make a statement of certainty?

"We plan to be there" -> "Pensiamo di esserci"

But that seems to me to mean "we're thinking of being there", implying we haven't made up our minds yet.

"We hope to be there" -> "Speriamo di esserci"

Naw! Hope is not as certain as plan.  I guess I'll go with "Ci saremo" and hope that our plans work out:)

Interestingly, Google translated "Pensiamo di esserci" to "We plan to be".  My goodness, we plan to be lots of places for many years to come!

Oh yeah!  Since May 1 is Labor Day all over Europe, I asked Google to translate "labor day" into Italian.  It gave, I kid you not, "Labor day", and pronounced it "lahbor die".  However, if I put in "festa dei lavoratori" it gives "labor day".

Ciao!

An interesting reference to this blog

Among the statistics I receive about this blog are the search words used to find it.  One recent one was "tundra lingon och chili"; "och" is Swedish for "and".  Whoever used it must have gone through many search items; I couldn't find this blog in the first fifty entries when I used the search terms in quotes.  I tried just the words without the quotes and found it - "You really are good at foreign languages".

It's interesting that the searcher used a Russian word, a Swedish word, and a Spanish word.

Computer translations

Some of you may have heard the joke about the first computer translation from English to Russian and back. Supposedly "The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak" came back as the "The vodka is good but the meat is rotten."

We have some Russian guests and one of them used www.translate.ru, which translates whole sentences rather than just words. Almost everything I asked it to translate into Russian I asked it to translate back into English. If I didn't like the result, I reworded the English and tried again.

When I tried "The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak." the back translation was weaker but still close: "The spirit wishes, but the flesh is weak."

Note: You don't have to read Russian to use this translator. Use http://www.online-translator.com/Default.aspx?prmtlang=en instead.

French toast – an anachronism in a classic of French literature

I've been reading "Les Trois Mousquetaires" by Alexandre Dumas. I've learned that I should read material in foreign languages by not worrying about the grammatical structure of sentences or the meaning of every word. I get most of the meaning by context. If I think that a word that I don't know is necessary for understanding, then I'll look it up.

This week I looked up an English word in "Les Trois Mousquetaires". Is "toast", as in a drink to the health of another, a French word? It is, but in the time of Louis XIII? I thought "toast" was a word from the Eighteenth Century. One source said "toast" was first used in 1700, but another said it was from the time of Charles II. Let's see, Louis XIII of France lived from 1601 to 1643; this is the time of "Les Trois Mousquetaires". Charles II of England lived from 1630 to 1685; he reigned from 1660 to 1685. I don't think the Three Musketeers would have even heard of it, but Dumas uses it at least three times in "Les Trois Mousquetaires".

This is a problem of writing novels about times before one's own. Think of Mark Twain's "Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court." How would a king speaking Celtic, Latin, or Anglo-Saxon understand someone speaking Nineteenth-Century American English? Of course, Twain gets around this by implying the whole adventure was a dream.

My own adventure was trying to find exactly where I had read "toast" in "Les Trois Mousquetaires". I read and reread the part where I thought it was, parts before, and parts after. I couldn't find it. Finally I downloaded a PDF file of "Les Trois Mousquetaires" and searched the file for "toast". That's how I know "toast" appeared three times. The other two occurrences I haven't gotten to yet.

So, now I knew that "toast" was first used in "Les Trois Mousquetaires" in the section where d'Artagnan went to find Porthos. How many times did I reread that section without seeing "toast"? D'Artagnan is softening up the inn-keeper by sharing a bottle and drinking to the prosperity of the inn. I can't translate very well d'Artagnan's reply to the innkeeper's thanks, but it is something like "there is more than you think "dans mon toast".

Knowing what the text surrounding "toast" was, I was able to quickly find it in my paperback copy. It was on the left of the page. I think my scan was down the center and to the right! The tricks our minds play.

War of the words

In response to Germany's Transport Minister Peter Ramsauer suggesting that employees not use foreign words such as "der Laptop", U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood has suggested that employees respond to fellow workers sneezes with "Bless you" rather than "Gesundheit".

"Der laptop?  Nein, nein", Deutsches Presse-Agentur as reported by the Star Tribune, 2010-12-30

Hm!  Has somebody started a rumor?  If I go to either www.dpa.com or www.dpa.de and search for "laptop", I get "Kein Suchergebnisse" - "no search 'whatever'".  Besides, the Star Tribune is not using richtig Deutsche; it should be "Der Laptop?"  Nouns are almost always capitalized in German.

Mein Deutschekunnigheit?  Nicht so gut!  Ich habe zu viel vergessen:(

You really are good at foreign languages

How often have you heard people say, "I never was any good with foreign languages!"  But any of us who read a lot or listen a lot, know lots of foreign words and phrases as part of our own language.

Consider the following:

Oui, non, savoir faire, coup d'état, menu, restaurant, merci beaucoup, la plume de ma tante, père, mère, soirée, bon jour, monsieur, madame, mademoiselle, garçon, parlez vous français

Si, gracias, señor, señora, señorita, taco, burrito, chili, sombrero, serape, fiesta, siesta, madre, padre, muchacho, muchacha, piñata, guerrilla, mesa

Ja, nein, Blitzkrieg, danke, sprechen sie Deutsch, guten morgen, auf Wiedersehen, angst

Da, nyet, troika, glasnost, perestroika, tsar, soviet, sputnik, vodka, tundra

Smörgåsbord, fjörd, tack, Viking, ski, lingon, orienteering, ombudsman, moped

Judo, karate, karaoke, sumo, sushi, tofu, miso, manga, sake, kimono, samurai, futon, tsunami

Si, no, italiano, spaghetti, opera, pasta, forte, piano, ciao, arrivederci, buon giorno, vino

I bet you know over 90% of these words and can identify each of the groups.

Interestingly, Apple's TextEdit only flagged five words as not in its dictionary; these were burrito, chili, serape, nyet, and fjörd.  TextEdit was happy when I spelled fjörd as fjord. In fact, TextEdit insisted on changing it as I typed.  Microsoft's Word is a bit fussier; it didn't recognize any of the words that contained diacritical marks, like in garçon, señor, and smörgåsbord.

See, you're also smarter than a computer.  You could recognize all the words.

Next time somebody says they have never been good at whatever, reply that they just haven't spent enough time and interest learning that whatever.

Ciao, amici miei!

Lino Lakes "English-only" ordinance explained

I figured out why Lino Lakes passed its "English-only" ordinance.  It has no sister city.  I went to its web site, http://www.ci.lino-lakes.mn.us, and searched for "sister city" and "sister cities".  No find.

If they had a sister city or two, they probably wouldn't improve their language skills any more than a few have in Duluth (with Växjö, Sweden; Petrozavodsk, Russia; Ohara-Isumi City, Japan; and Thunder Bay, Ontario).  But at least they might have increased their tolerance for people speaking other languages.

Afganistan - When will they ever learn?

Corruption in a client government!
Hubris in an imperial government!
Wikileaks of a bleak situation!
Reading "The limits of power" by Andrew J. Bacevich
History of the French Resistance
American colonial history
English only in the Lino Lakes government
Cutting foreign languages in schools

It all really ties together, sadly.

Let's start with American colonial history.  The colonists did not like being occupied by a foreign army.  They started fighting back.  They didn't follow the rules of engagement and fought from concealment. George the Third had many derogatory things to say about those rebels.  Many Afghanis (and Iraqis) don't like being occupied by a foreign army.  They started fighting back.  They don't follow the rules of engagement and fight from concealment. George the Bush had many derogatory things to say about those insurgents.

Many French did not like the German occupation.  They fought back, often from concealment.  Instead of roadside bombs, they threw train switches the wrong way.  Some Germans took bribes to look the other way.  Some Vichy police were very hard on the resistance.  Other Vichy police called resistance leaders to warn them of a planned raid.  See "Occupation déja vu".  Oh, yes!  The Germans in France had an advantage that the Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan don't have; a large number of them spoke the local language.

We are running up huge deficits to fight these wars and don't have money for education in our own country.  In fact, we are cutting back on the teaching of foreign languages.  If our soldiers and diplomats are not linguistically proficient, can we expect them to communicate with people who speak other languages with little or no proficiency in English?

Many states and localities want to put into law English-only for government business, the latest being Lino Lakes, Minnesota (Star Tribune 2010-07-26).  What if other countries did the same, including at immigration and customs control at the airport?  If the U.S. is English only, shouldn't Japan be Japanese only?  If so, they should remove the Romaji from all the train station signs and leave only the Kanji and Hiragana.  Ah, so!  You didn't get off at せんだい?  So sorry, you missed Sendai.

Which gets us back to imperial hubris.  If we think we know what's best for other countries, how can we even know what's best for them if we don't speak their language, much less understand many of their customs?  Insurgency will surely follow.  Knowing the culture, the language, and the landscape better than any foreigners, the insurgents have an immense tactical and strategic advantage.

When will they ever learn?

Multi-lingual redundancies or repetitive redundancies

You may have laughed at the redundancies of chai tea, prosciutto ham, shrimp scampi, where the English word means the same thing as the foreign word it is paired with.

A couple days ago I saw one new to me: cheese quesadilla. Quesadilla literally means "little cheesy thing". See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quesadilla.

See also William Safire's "ON LANGUAGE; 'Nyah, Nyah -- Gotcha!'"

I'm not a genius, but I'll try harder

I've long thought that many talents were not so much gifts or genius but hard work or social or family expectations. Either someone decided that he or she wanted to excel at something and worked at it with or without help or a family or other social group had expectations of skills and help nourish the development of those skills.

Why is it certain groups have large numbers of singers and others have so many people afraid to open their mouths? Why is it those who dabble in foreign languages keep expanding their knowledge and others just say they were never good at foreign languages?

I was encouraged again in my own endeavors by David Brooks' column, "Genius: The Modern View", New York Times, 2009-04-30 and republished in the Star Tribune earlier this week.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/01/opinion/01brooks.html

He singles out Mozart as not that special to begin with. He copied others' works and he was not that great a musician at an early age. He did have an excellent teacher who had high expectations and spent more time with his pupil than most teachers can, namely his father. Brooks said the young Mozart got his 10,000 hours of practice in at an early age.

Ten thousand hours of practice is what many say is needed to gain mastery of a subject. But not just any practice, but deliberate practice. One works on one's weak spots rather than practice the same thing over and over again.

I'm finding that I just can't sing pieces over and over again. I have to work on the weak spots to improve them. I found this also in memorizing the words. I've been stuck knowing only the first verse to "Padmoskoviya Vechera (Moscow Evenings)" for a long time. I started not looking at words to the second verse for longer and longer sections. I now have only one syllable to get right! Maybe tomorrow I'll start on the third piece.

I also find that I don't learn foreign languages unless I have some strong motive and lots of practice. I've made several attempts to learn Japanese, but I only extend my vocabulary a bit. I'm a long way from holding any meaningful conversation.

The next time anyone says, including yourself, "I was never any good at ...", remind them or yourself that you either weren't interested or weren't taking the time to learn the skill.

See also "Talent is Overrated" by Jim Citrin and my web pages "You can speak foreign languages" and "Mind your mind: it's a gold mine".

"Thomas Jefferson's" advice to young people (and probably everybody else)

Clay Jenkinson used Skype and iChat to visit as Thomas Jefferson with a grade school class in Naperville IL. This is episode 757 found on iTunes or www.jeffersonhour.org. At about 31:12 into the episode, he leaves them with three pieces of advice:

1) Read all the books you can. He said when he was their age he spent 10 hours a day reading.

2) Learn at least one foreign language, better two or more. He said he spoke seven languages, three dead and four current. From Thomas Jefferson Encyclopedia these were Latin, Greek, Anglo-Saxon, French, Spanish, Italian, and English. He also dabbled in others.

3) Take up a music instrument. He played violin, pianoforte, and harpsichord. "You are creating harmony in your life."

The sorry state of foreign languages in the United States

I went to the UMD library today for another purpose, but before I left, I scanned the available newspapers. There were only two foreign language newspapers: Le Monde and Le Monde Diplomatique. They used to have Die Zeit, Dagens Nyheter (Swedish), and a Spanish language newspaper or two.

I knew UMD* had dropped Dagens Nyheter a few years ago. I found that surprising because they generally have at least a half dozen students from Sweden. In fact, I would often hear Swedish in the hallways.

I suppose that there was no demand. That is sad that so few people are interested in reading material in other languages.

The good news is that the Rochester Police recently hired a woman from Superior WI. Her education and experience includes a major in modern Arabic from the Defense Language Institute and five years as an Arabic translator for the Army. Click here for the story.

Why would the Rochester Police need an Arabic speaker? The Mayo Clinic draws people from all over the world, including many Arab countries.
* University of Minnesota, Duluth