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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1993-02-10, Page 5International Scene aymon ... anon THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 1993. PAGE 5. Fractured English, a two-way street The fact that you're reading this automatically makes you a member of one of the largest families on the planet. Three hundred and fifty million earthlings speak English as their mother tongue. More than a billion use it as a second language. Yessir, an awful lot of information gets communicated in the language you and I are sharing at this moment. But not always ... well communicated. Shakespeare's tongue is a convoluted medium of expression with plenty of hairpin turns and cul de sacs. Foreigners don't always get the hang of it, right off. Which is why on the streets of Tokyo you are apt to see designer T shirts bearing slogans such as O.D. ON BOURGEOISIE MILK BOY MILK. What does it mean? Too inscrutable for this Occidental. There's a restaurant in Geneva the menus of which bear the blissful slogan "Our wines leave you nothing to hope for". And a Warsaw eatery lets its customers know that they can choose from two specials — "roasted duck let loose" or "beef rashers beaten up in the country people's fashion." If you've still got your appetite, pop a Pepto-Bismol and run before you get to the Subsidies and the farm community Writing about agricultural prices is like playing Russian roulette; sooner or later you are going to say something that will be guaranteed to get you in hot water with some segment of the farm community. Whenever I get around to this item in any of my Economics courses, I can be sure of getting a stiff argument from some member of my class whose husband or father is actively engaged in farming. However, I have long ago learned that you cannot please all the students all the time and, as I attempt to point out both sides to the story, disputes are bound to happen. Regardless of where you sit, one thing is certain. Western governments can no longer afford the level of subsidies and price support programs that are currently taking place. Their inability to come to grips with this problem is the main roadblock to the completion of the current round of negotiations under the auspices of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (better known as GATT). Let's take a look at a few figures. These financial transfers amount to no less than $100 billion (yes, that's right) to farmers in the European Common Market, a figure that makes up half of their total income. The Japanese and the Americans are both in the 40-45 billion dollar range; in raw figures these three far exceed any other nation. Canada with its $11 billion dollar subsidy is left far behind. However, when you look at the picture from the point of view of percentage of total farm income, as I did with the ECM above, some other countries come into prominence. Swiss farmers lead the list with an amazing 80 per cent of their income from financial transfers of some sort. Japan, Norway, Sweden, Austria and Finland all exceed 50 per cent while ours Acapulco restaurant which has a sign on the wall saying "The manager has personally passed all the water served here." And in Denmark, harried international travellers will find perhaps the only truthful aeronautical promise I've ever encountered. An airline office in Copenhagen promises to "take your bags and send them in all directions." Protestants with tooth problems can feel right at home in Hong Kong where a downtown dentist guarantees that teeth will be "extracted by the latest Methodists." Then there is the problem of X-rated English — wherein newcomers to English inadvertently stumble into the off-colour range of the language spectrum. Such as the Zurich hotel which warns its English-speaking guests "Because of the impropriety of entertaining guests of the opposite sex in the bedroom it is suggested that the lobby be used for this purpose." Or the laundry in Rome which enjoins its female customers to "leave your clothes here and spend the afternoon having a good time." Or the Paris haut couture boutique which advertises "dresses for street walking." Not to be outdone by the Bangkok dry cleaner which suggests that prospective customers "drop their trousers here for best results." But fractured English is a two way street. Sometimes when we anglophones try our comes close with 45 per cent. New Zealand, which is one of the few countries to really come to grips with the problem, has a minuscule four per cent while Australia is down to 15 per cent. One of the things I teach my classes is that it is impossible to help a group such as the farming sector without hurting somebody else; the problem is that price mechanisms have become so complicated it is frequently almost impossible to determine who gets hurt and by how much. Some of those hurt include the lower income farmers. One Australian study has estimated that just over a third of all the money reaching farmers is wasted in some way, with some of the main reasons being food grown in the wrong places with the wrong mix of land, labour and chemicals. If these poorer farmers are the ones to receive the most help, the waste is appalling as only 10 per cent of these transfers reach them. Obviously much of the rest goes to the richer farmers: I recall reading, for example, that the Gallo family, of wine producing fame in California, was given $12 million over a five year period to help it sell its wine in such places as Canada and elsewhere. It has frequently been claimed that one reason why the farm community is so successful in getting and maintaining subsidies and other forms of protection is that the rural electoral ridings have fewer voters than an urban one, thus each of the rural votes is worth more. I'm not so sure this is as valid as it appears to be. There has to be something else present that can cause, say, a small number of French farmers to literally paralyze the entire nation, not to mention slow down negotiations at the GATT conference. A good case could be made for the effectiveness of farm lobbies. In the U.S. the third biggest contribution to political campaign funds, after doctors and lawyers, is the American sugar industry. One of the problems with any reform in farm subsidies is that, like the famous J- curve effect on our balance of payments tongues at translation we mangle and muck up with the best of them. In Japan, coca cola cans bear the slogan, "I Feel Coke and Sound Special." Sounds stupid, but it works. It works a lot better than the Coca Cola PR department's first foray into China, when they tried translating 'It's The Real Thing' into Mandarin. Somehow, the slogan came out as 'Bite The Wax Tadpole' — a jingle not likely to move a lot of soft drink. Sometimes even a single word can get you in big trouble. General Motors found that out when they tried marketing the Chevrolet Nova in South America. "Nova" works fine in English — it comes from the Latin, meaning 'new'. Unfortunately, if you throw in a space, it comes out in Spanish as no va — which means 'won't go'. Not the kind of reputation you want your car to have. But the Ford Motor Company had even bigger marketing headaches when they introduced their Fiera and Pinto to Europe. In Spanish, 'Fiera' translates as 'old, ugly woman'. Don't even ask about what Pinto means in Portuguese. Well, since you asked ... 'pinto' is Portuguese slang for 'small male organ'. Precisely the opposite of what all those overhyped auto-erotic adverts want customers to believe. when the exchange rate of the dollar is lowered, things get worse before they get better. This in turn provides ammunition for those resisting the change. One good example is found in New Zealand where, as I indicated, serious farm reform has been carried out for a number of years. In 1984 when it all started, farm income started to drop, not to mention the value of farm land. In four years this income was only one-third of what it had been; land values were one- half. Since both started to climb there are, interestingly enough, more farmers on the land than there were at the beginning of the 1980's. It is, as I have admitted, difficult to get a balanced picture on farm subsidies, due to so many conflicting arguments. However, when it starts to cost more to store surpluses than their inherent value, as it does in the European Common Market, it is obvious that something is badly wrong. Outside of New Zealand, and to a lesser extent Australia, no country is really coming to grips with the problem. There is a growth industry in pointing an accusing finger at somebody else. Looking Back Continued from page 4 Government has proclaimed it is necessary to float a loan for $600,000,000 to carry on Canada's war effort; to supply our Armed Forces with tools so they can finish the job; to see that a steady and unbroken flow of equipment is being sent forward to the front lines. Bill Johnston's hay pressers baled 21 and a half tons of hay in six hours. It was cited as a record. Gordon McGavin of Walton was named president of the Ontario The Short of it By Bonnie Gropp Weddings not what they used to be Going to weddings just isn't the sane as it used to be. Entering a church with the knowledge that today one out of two marriages ends in divorce, it's not as simple as it once was to get all starry-eyed about a young couple declaring their undying love for each other, especially when you just spent your hard-earned fortune on a gift that could eventually become part of the community property spoils. This past weekend we attended the nuptials of a young couple, occurring almost to the date 22 years after the groom's parents were wed. I was a teenager when that first marriage took place but I remember holding even then a rather cyncial, 'what's the point' sort of view. After all, if there was ever a stormy omen clouding any wedding day it was this one. I don't know how many of you remember Jan. 30, 1971, but it was back when the metaphor 'mountains of snow' was not hyperbole. The wedding was planned, as any typical wedding, to be a big event. Three hundred and fifty close friends and relatives were invited to share the happy occasion. However, the day before the wedding we got a Snowbelt snow storm of monumental proportions. The bridal party managed to get to the rehearsal before they closed the highways, but as the roads remained that way for some time, it was not looking good for the rest of us. As the groom's family, however, we felt it was pretty important to try and get there. My father owned an auto body shop, so he took off in the tow truck with the light flashing and the convoy following. Sometimes, we could even see the light. At times we really weren't sure if we were all going to get there without mishap, while at the same time we prayed the storm would end so that if we did make it, we wouldn't end up spending that evening on the floor of the Lucknow Legion after the reception was over. If I remember correctly, less than one third of those 350 people expected to attend actually made it. But the ones who did feted the bridal couple with three times the enthusiasm. The less than favourable beginning to this wedding couldn't diminsh the happiness of the bride and groom who were so committed to each other and ready to share their life together that it would take something bigger than a snowstorm to rain on their parade. In the time since, they have built one of the strongest marriages I have seen. This past weekend their son and his bride had a wedding day of sunshine. The ceremony went smoothly, other than some reluctancy on the part of the blushing bride to make a spectacle of herself by kissing her groom overmuch in public. Actually the only thing to cause a stink at this occasion was the fact that the country club where the reception was held was experiencing water difficulties. There were subtle differences in the two couples beyond the type of wedding. Besides being quite young the groom is still at university. When you think how difficult it is to make a marriage work today they might seem a prime candidate for failure. But I tried to remember that challenges can weaken relationships or make them stronger and none of us can really know what category anyone falls in. It's easy to see what may be against a young couple marrying these days, but Pm glad to think this pair has exuberance, family love and support and of course, the resilience of youth on their side. d e d It It It pn Arthur Black