HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1993-02-10, Page 5International Scene
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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.
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It
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Arthur Black