Loading...
The Citizen, 1992-10-14, Page 5Arthur Black THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 14,1992. PAGE 5. Is the commuter trip really necessary? This morning I left my house in the country at 6:30 so I could catch a bus that drove due east for two hours and ultimately dumped me in the bowels of the Big City where I made my way to my office, my desk and my telephone. As soon as I got to my telephone I called Harry. Harry and I had a 10 o'clock meeting, but Harry wasn't in yet. His secretary figured he was probably caught in traffic somewhere between his office (just down the hall from mine) and his home, which is in a small town about as far east of the city as mine is west. I hung up and pondered the absurdity of the situation. Here were two worker drones, Harry and Yours Truly, dutifully plodding towards the big smoke from opposite directions at the crack of dawn through traffic jams, exhaust fumes and various vignettes of vehicular mayhem . . . just so we could sit down across a desk and talk business. To quote an old wartime slogan: Was This International Scene Slang — the spice of language I am sure that any language, including English, would be far less colourful if it were not for the slang expressions that are created, live their life and eventually die out. In some cases they don't die at all; they continue on as part of the everyday language, to be used to liven up our dialogue. What you may not realize, just because we say something one way in English, we cannot translate it literally into another language and expect it to be understood immediately. Let me illustrate. Let's say you have a relative who is not on your list of favourites but, as you say, he/she keeps turning up like a bad penny. You have a French friend who does not have any idea what you mean by that expression and so you translate it “arriver comme un mauvais sou”. That is a literal translation but he still doesn't understand at all what you mean. After a lengthy explanation, he gets the gist of it and replies “You mean - arriver comme un cheveu sur la soupe.” Translated it means to arrive like a hair in your soup. You say to an Italian friend of yours “I haven't seen you in a blue moon.” He is totally perplexed and wants to know how your seeing him can be connected with a moon of any colour, especially a blue one. You go through the same procedure as above and in due course he comes to a realization of what you meant. “Ah,” he says, “you mean ad ogni morte de papa.” which translates as “at every death of a pope.” I recall coming face to face with such a problem when I was working with NATO. The Portuguese flyers we were training, came to treat me as something of a father Trip Really Necessary? Why didn't we both stay home in our pyjamas and do our business long distance? Well, because Harry and I are commuters, that's why. We belong to that loony benighted stratum of citizens who earn their pay cheques in the city but lay their heads in the boonies. There are dozens of good reasons for commuting to work - cheaper accommodation, clean air, the sight of actual wildlife other than cockroaches and sewer rats - but commuting comes with a hefty price tag: twice a day you have to gird up your seat belt, check your vital fluids (gas, oil, windshield washer), take a death grip on the steering wheel and Make The Trip. But do we have to? Everyday that I drive into the city I see literally hundreds upon hundreds of cars doing the same thing mine is - chugging down the road to and from the city in pathetic chrome-to-chrome daisy chains that stretch over the horizon in both directions. And for what? Oh sure, some commuters have jobs that absolutely require them to bring themselves physically into the city each day, but some of us - in fact, probably most of us - are making the tiresome, smelly, dangerous and expensive trip to town to do something that we could just as well accomplish at home. Let's face it: most of us salaried stiffs don't earn our daily bread by being hewers of wood or drawers of water any more. Most of By Raymond Canon confessor since I was the only one on the base who could speak Portuguese. One day they came to me with a problem and asked that I accompany them to the Commanding Officer of the NATO detachment since they did not think their English was good enough to explain what they wanted to say. I willingly went along; we entered the office, the officer looked up and said to the Portuguese, “What's your beef?” That threw them in a tizzy; they asked me in Portuguese why the OC was talking about meat when they had a serious problem on their hands. I explained to them this was some English slang which meant “complaint” and he was just enquiring why they were there. I then had to explain to the OC that, if he wanted the Portuguese to understand him, he would have to lay off the slang. Once we got that all cleaned up, the meeting went along in a more orderly fashion. You probably realize by now that slang can change even within a language. Spend a it of time in England, for example, and you will be amazed how many expressions you hear which are used seldom, if ever, in Canada. In Scotland it is even worse and I sometimes got the feeling when I was there that I might just as well be speaking another language. Many of the expressions make reference to local customs and it goes without saying that, unless you are acquainted with that region, you are not going to understand too much of what is said. Sometimes the expressions show up prejudices. If I am translating from English to French and the expression “to take French leave” comes up, I am in a bit of quandary. The English, for whatever reason, believe the French have left them in the lurch on a number of occasions, hence the derogatory use of French in the expression. But guess what happens when I translate that into French? I say “partir a l'anglaise” since the French accuse the English of doing exactly us these days - be we inventory clerks or managing editors - are pushers of paper or wranglers of electrons. Our secret weapons are the telephone, the personal computer and the fax machine. And phones, PCs and faxes work just as well out behind the barn as they do in a skyscraper at Bay and King. What would happen if all the commuters who could do their job from home, didn't go to the office tomorrow? The savings would be astronomical. In Britain, a report called Strategic Workstyles 2000 has just been published. It claims that if British commuters worked from their homes Britain would save more than $5 billion in fuel costs and have 9,000 fewer road accidents to contend with. It's starting to happen over here. Last month, the president of the Treasury Board announced a pilot project that will allow employees of the federal government the option of working from their homes, linked to their offices by telephones and computers. “It can improve many aspects of life for Canadians” said Treasury Board president Gilles Loiselle. “It can be good for family life, reduce environmental damage and encourage energy conservation.” He may be right. Unfortunately, I can’t think about it any more. Too tired. I have to get to bed so I can get up early tomorrow and leave the house at 6:30 to catch a bus that will drive ... the same thing. In doing the translation I manage to insult not one but two nationalities. It is small comfort, at least to me, to know that the Spanish expression for the same thing is “marcharse a la francesa.” In short, the French lose 2-1. Speaking of the French, with their concern about fine food and drink, it is small wonder that many of their slang expressions make reference to this category. Their equivalent to “knee-high to a grasshopper” is literally “tall as three apples”. When we split the difference, the French divide a pear in two parts. No bed of roses is to the French not all honey while going broke in French is being forced to drink broth. Even the Spaniards and the Italians get into the food act. A Canadian may tell you to go fly^our kite; a Spaniard will issue the same thought by telling you to go fry asparagus. The Italian expression for nitpik is literally to look for hairs inside an egg. And so it goes. Slang certainly colours languages and we would all be poor without it. Just make sure the person you are talking to understands it. I was reminded of this recently when I was talking to a French speaking person and happened to use the French slang for to make a dislike to someone (prendre quelqu'un en grippe for any French speaking readers). My friend immediately replied, Ah Raymond, I know ze expression in English. You say “I take a scunner to him.” I had to admit that I had never heard this expression. Do any of my readers know it? HAVE AN OPINION ? The Citizen welcomes letters to the editor. They must be signed and should be accompanied by a telephone number should we need to clarify any information. The Citan notpnntl The Short of it By Bonnie Gropp Changes must be made — soon I've often wondered how people like Ken Boone sleep at night. Imagine seeing the beauty of a young child's face, that wonderful innocence and fresh faced exuberance and know that because of a decision you helped make, such a child died. Imagine knowing that a life which should have held many more years of wonder ended in terror at the hands of a psychopath. Ken Boone is a parole officer who worked on the case management team for convicted child molester, Joseph Fredericks, and helped plan his release despite opposition from police officers and officials. Boone explained their stand by saying police officers often object to parolees going into their communities. And for very good reason, Mr. Boone. Six months after being accepted into a halfway house program, Fredericks abducted 11-year-old Christopher Stephenson from a Brampton mall, then raped and stabbed him to death. Recently, at a hearing probing the child's brutal death, which occurred in 1988, it was noted that after Fredericks' release he was to have received treatment and drug therapy to suppress his sex drive; however, these two crucial conditions were never done. For Mr. Boone's part, he said he could not keep Fredericks past his mandatory supervision date because the man didn't meet conditions in the Parole Act which would have allowed officials to ensure he served his full sentence for assaults on children. The act is apparently worth diddley-squat when it comes to holding dangerous criminals, because psychopathy is not viewed as a mental disorder, according to Dr. Neil Conacher, who testified at the hearing. It is a dilemma facing corrections officers that has not changed since then. What dilemma? How many people have to die? Call me naive, call me an idealist, but there is a problem here, one so obvious that I can't understand why it's taking so much time and energy to remedy. In my time on this earth I have learned there are seldom easy answers to any question of concern. It would be nice if we dealt in black and white all the time, however, the colour of most issues is grey. How do we toughen laws to deal with the bad guys while at the same time giving a break to the guy who simply made a mistake? Who are we to suggest that someone should not be given another chance to prove himself? But if there is a question shouldn't the benefit be given to the innocent? When I think of the last few minutes of Christopher's life, the anguish and fear, there is no grey for me. Last week we ran a story in The Citizen regarding the CAVEAT petition, instigated by Priscilla deVilliers, whose daughter Nina was cold-bloodedly murdered by a parolee. One million names are needed on the petition, which is asking for changes to the flawed justice system, for presentation to the federal government. The government, according to CAVEAT organizers, is listening. But, quite frankly I think it's time for action — not when 1,000,000 names are collected, but now. The black and white here is that there are obvious changes that can and should be made soon. Parole officers need less restrictions and parolees more supervision. And if the Oxford dictionary recognizes psychopathy as a mental disorder shouldn't the Parole Act? After all, I think we ordinary people agree that anyone who has ravished an innocent child can't get away with saying it was a mistake. Our children, those beautifully trusting, wonderfully adventurous beings are learning to live in fear and it's time to make a change in our society, so the criminals aren't free, but our children are — free to enjoy life and all the good things still in it.