A long day, well spent...

Natalie's cat, Lily, is apparently feeling that inexorable call of nature that results in kittens, and made noises to that effect at 5 o'clock this morning, which was most unkind. She was perched on the telephone stand near the front door when I left in the morning, and was there, in the same position, when I returned in the evening. Meowing.

The cat has a set of vocal cords on her, let me tell ya.

Getting to work went well, and the sim went well too (except, arguably, for the people in the sim - the control team and the crew - as an ordinary day turned into a series of ever-more-serious challenges, culminating in a possible collision with orbital debris).

I came home fairly directly, after stopping off at a property management place to pay an association fee, and at Wal-Mart to pick up some supplies and practice standing in short lines for long periods of time.

A check of email turned up an interesting note from the accreditation folks at the ATA: a tentative feeler regarding my interest in being a grader of accreditation tests. I've never really considered it, but will sleep on it tonight.

The cat continues to make an awful racket.

This was apparently one of Natalie's school nights, so I ended up watching a DVD of hers (Mutant X) while I scarfed down dinner (buckwheat kasha with bean sprouts and fried pork... one does what one must).

Once she got back, we sat and talked for a while about her day, my day, and the usual stuff (Life, the Universe, and Everything), to the accompaniment of a Merlot from Bulgaria, bought at the Hong Kong Market (go figure... ).

Among the questions Natalie asked was, in effect: What makes a good translator? I answered with my stock answer (which I've probably offered in my LiveJournal at one time or another):

A a good translator is someone with the skill to write for publication. (By extension, a good interpreter is someone with public speaking skills.)

The big "gotcha" about being a translator (and what makes it a translation, as opposed to, say, writing a book review or a how-to article) is simply this: your client determines not only the subject you will write about, but also each thought that is to be expressed about that subject. This "specification" is provided in written form, in the source document. And oh, by the way, it's in a foreign language. :^)

That is why having a knowledge of two languages, while a necessary condition for being a translator, is not by itself sufficient. You've got to be able to write and be understood.

Most people, while technically literate (i.e., able to read and write) nevertheless fall into a vast grouping of individuals for whom written expression is a marginal skill, owing to a number of obstacles: unclear or unfocused thinking, inability to identify (or resolve) ambiguity, simple carelessness, and poor grammar, usage, and spelling skills come to mind immediately.

(This is not to say that I never suffer from such shortcomings... but I like to think that I am on the lookout for their occurrence and prepared to deal with them when they do manifest themselves.)

These kinds of problems were highlighted for me earlier today by a list of purportedly real excuses written by parents on behalf of their children (according to the accompanying blurb on the printout of said list, posted on a bulletin board at the MCC). I didn't particularly find them funny, but I did find them somewhat illustrative, albeit a little over the top as serious examples:

Please excuse Jimmy for being. It was his father's fault.

Please excuse Pedro from being absent yesterday. He had diahre dyrea direathe the runs.

Please excuse Burma, she has been sick and under the doctor.

These selections, of course, do not exhaustively demonstrate what I'm trying to get at, but they point out the general direction.

(Don't cats get sore throats?)

I'm tired. Fortunately, tomorrow's work day doesn't start until after 9 am.

Cheers...