The all-night grammar party
Last Thursday night through Friday morning, I discovered that pulling an all-nighter for work is a whole lot better than pulling an all-nighter for school. The coffee's fancier, there's overtime pay to be had, and your co-workers never expect you to say something like, "I really have been working on this project for 36 hours straight!" I really had, save for several mealtimes, walks with Gus, and drives between home and work. And it was all because of a stupid Urdenglish project that I should have managed better. Yes, Urdenglish. Urdu + English. The assignment was handed to me by one of our remote project managers. He happens to live in the Dominican Republic (after finding no suitable Jewish girls to marry in Atlanta, he ditched English-speaking women altogether and began bopping around South and Central America), and he famously likes to hand out projects to freelancers that "will only take a few hours" but then have translators and graphic artists working late into the night. I, like he, am dangerously optimistic about time, and so when he offered me the 165 Urdenglish articles to be "touched up with some light editing," I accepted, thinking the project would allow me to grab a few easy extra hours while I was in Florida.
The articles had originally been in a Pakistani newspaper. When they were translated, they obviously were never in the hands of anyone with a native command of English. Modifiers dangled everywhere. Everything was in passive voice. Every noun that needed a "the" didn't have one, and every noun that didn't need a definite article had one. Plus, Urdu being a language with non-Roman characters, all of the names were translated phonetically, often with comical results (as you'll soon see). This was not light editing -- this was rewriting every line of every article. This was Googling websites about Pakistani political organizations to find the correct spellings of their leaders' names. This was learning enough about the rules of cricket to know if the 20-some articles about cricket were written awkwardly or not.
Two weeks later and I still wasn't done.
The Dominican Jew e-mailed me on Wednesday and asked if I thought I could send all the edited articles to him by the end of the day on Friday.
And I, being of that treacherous sort of personality that would dictate me to mess with all my circadian rhythms rather than to have to disappoint someone, wrote back with a "Sure, no problem." By Thursday morning, though, I realized that this was going to be a huge problem, and so the 36 hours of editing Pakistani articles began.
Here is an Urdenglish translation that had me cracking up at 4 in the morning:
When the American president George W. Bush reached last week to visit Magnolia, the birth and grave country of history maker Changez Khan, he was extremely happy.
There is a distance of only a few centuries between these two characters of history in the motherland of blood - shedder and destruction spreader Changez Khan.
Today President Bush reminds us of Changez Khan who had destroyed a whole world; killed millions of people and built minarets of the heads of human beings in remembrance of that victory, Islamic world was his first prey.
Before president Bush, his commander in chief and Defense Minister Rams Field has reached.
Having seen the scene of their welcome, reporters wrote that it seemed that they were watching the scenes of any film.
Mongols, wearing ironic helmets on heads, holding weapons drawn swords, holding colorful flags, were riding an horses row by row, now for a long period they did not invaded anywhere and they did not pass day and nights riding on the open back of horses like their ancestors, so now their legs twisted inside would have become straight, otherwise, once upon a time, Mongols were called wilds of twisted legs, because race by race, riding on open backs of horses, making them run and attempting to control themselves, their legs were twisted inside, which they pasted to the stomach of horses.
To welcome the president Bush there were several female dancers, they danced wearing beautiful dresses, hiding half faces and fluttering colorful feathers of birds on heads, cows, camels and double humped she camels were roaming nearby which were known as the particular identification of Magnolia.
There were along with the American president Bush, this wife Lara Bush and US secretary of state Condo Lisa Rise, when she got out of the hall, it was severe cold, he in accordance with the tradition of hospitality, drank milk of mere from the hands of hosts, in which beer and common milk was mixed, then he took two draughts of tea, ate paneer but he excused to drink the milk of she camel which is the favorite food of Mongols.
Defense Minister Rams Field, who was already there, was also in the receptionists, riding on a horse.
It had been a while since I'd stayed up all night, and it had been even longer since I had stayed up all night to do something mentally strenuous. I found that there were several stages of emotional wrangling that I went through as the hours wore on:
1. That which I won't call bitchiness, but which could perhaps be labeled that way. Adam, I'm so sorry I snapped at you at 4:30 in the morning and nearly addressed you as my mother.
2. Uncontrollable crying. After Adam left for work, I sat on the bed with my laptop and attempted to listen to music while working on one of the cricket articles. Something about the matter-of-fact solemness of Jackson Browne's "Doctor My Eyes" made me start crying. And crying. And so I turned off the music and shut the laptop and went to wash my face and brush my teeth and have some water. I looked in the mirror after all of that had been done. Still crying. I wasn't even sure why I was crying at that point, but the more frustrated I became to get myself to stop, the harder I cried. Eventually I faced the world with splotchy cheeks as I walked Gus down the street and back and then headed off to work.
3. Singing along with Queen songs. This is an important state of being even for the non-sleep-deprived people of the world.
4. Uncontrollable paranoia. At work, my boss, JLL (John Lithgow Lite), didn't greet me as he usually did. And, around lunchtime, he was sitting in my co-worker's office, talking to her in low tones. I made out a few phrases -- "controlled access," "password," "problem." OH GOD. I clutched my hair. THEY HAD CONTACTED THE IT DEPARTMENT AND GOTTEN MY INTERNET ACCESS LOGS AND THEY WERE READING MY JOURNAL AND THEY WERE GOING TO CUT OFF MY WEB ACCESS. I was sure this was what it was. My boss went to lunch and came back and started talking to the company president. I was convinced that this conversation was about how categorically crappy I am at doing anything that relates to translation project management, and how I should be banned from touching any and all translation projects. I was afraid to leave for lunch because I was sure that as soon as I left, an all-office meeting would be called to discuss how uniformly awful I am at everything. I ran across the street and bought a Subway sandwich and came back. I munched, and worked on the Urdenglish, and waited for JLL to ask me if I could join him in his office for a moment, please.
It never happened. Although I still wouldn't be terribly surprised if, at some point, they tell me to never touch a translation project again. It'd be a welcome request.
5. Terrifying giddiness. Maybe JLL stayed away from my office because he knew I was really busy. When he finally did stop by, late in the afternoon, he mild-manneredly asked me what was going on, expecting a typically mild-mannered response. "Oh my God, you're never going to believe this," I told him, "but I've been working on this project with the articles from Pakistan for almost 36 hours!" And then I started laughing, and couldn't stop. JLL looked at me with deep concern. "I hope you make it home okay," he said. "We want you back here on Monday."
The epilogue: After some help from the Dominican Jew, the project was finished. I drove home at 7 -- very carefully. Even when I've had enough sleep, I hardly ever venture into anything beyond the far-right lane of Atlanta's highways. Adam and I were supposed to go to a shindig at Jason and Susan's house, but I doubted that spoken communication, alcohol consumption, or any combination of the two, would be very good for me that night. So we stayed home and watched The African Queen, which is what I'd been planning to do before any social invites came up. After the movie, I was able to squeak out a few words in my best Katharine Hepburn accent before falling into a merciful twelve hours of sleep.
The articles had originally been in a Pakistani newspaper. When they were translated, they obviously were never in the hands of anyone with a native command of English. Modifiers dangled everywhere. Everything was in passive voice. Every noun that needed a "the" didn't have one, and every noun that didn't need a definite article had one. Plus, Urdu being a language with non-Roman characters, all of the names were translated phonetically, often with comical results (as you'll soon see). This was not light editing -- this was rewriting every line of every article. This was Googling websites about Pakistani political organizations to find the correct spellings of their leaders' names. This was learning enough about the rules of cricket to know if the 20-some articles about cricket were written awkwardly or not.
Two weeks later and I still wasn't done.
The Dominican Jew e-mailed me on Wednesday and asked if I thought I could send all the edited articles to him by the end of the day on Friday.
And I, being of that treacherous sort of personality that would dictate me to mess with all my circadian rhythms rather than to have to disappoint someone, wrote back with a "Sure, no problem." By Thursday morning, though, I realized that this was going to be a huge problem, and so the 36 hours of editing Pakistani articles began.
Here is an Urdenglish translation that had me cracking up at 4 in the morning:
When the American president George W. Bush reached last week to visit Magnolia, the birth and grave country of history maker Changez Khan, he was extremely happy.
There is a distance of only a few centuries between these two characters of history in the motherland of blood - shedder and destruction spreader Changez Khan.
Today President Bush reminds us of Changez Khan who had destroyed a whole world; killed millions of people and built minarets of the heads of human beings in remembrance of that victory, Islamic world was his first prey.
Before president Bush, his commander in chief and Defense Minister Rams Field has reached.
Having seen the scene of their welcome, reporters wrote that it seemed that they were watching the scenes of any film.
Mongols, wearing ironic helmets on heads, holding weapons drawn swords, holding colorful flags, were riding an horses row by row, now for a long period they did not invaded anywhere and they did not pass day and nights riding on the open back of horses like their ancestors, so now their legs twisted inside would have become straight, otherwise, once upon a time, Mongols were called wilds of twisted legs, because race by race, riding on open backs of horses, making them run and attempting to control themselves, their legs were twisted inside, which they pasted to the stomach of horses.
To welcome the president Bush there were several female dancers, they danced wearing beautiful dresses, hiding half faces and fluttering colorful feathers of birds on heads, cows, camels and double humped she camels were roaming nearby which were known as the particular identification of Magnolia.
There were along with the American president Bush, this wife Lara Bush and US secretary of state Condo Lisa Rise, when she got out of the hall, it was severe cold, he in accordance with the tradition of hospitality, drank milk of mere from the hands of hosts, in which beer and common milk was mixed, then he took two draughts of tea, ate paneer but he excused to drink the milk of she camel which is the favorite food of Mongols.
Defense Minister Rams Field, who was already there, was also in the receptionists, riding on a horse.
It had been a while since I'd stayed up all night, and it had been even longer since I had stayed up all night to do something mentally strenuous. I found that there were several stages of emotional wrangling that I went through as the hours wore on:
1. That which I won't call bitchiness, but which could perhaps be labeled that way. Adam, I'm so sorry I snapped at you at 4:30 in the morning and nearly addressed you as my mother.
2. Uncontrollable crying. After Adam left for work, I sat on the bed with my laptop and attempted to listen to music while working on one of the cricket articles. Something about the matter-of-fact solemness of Jackson Browne's "Doctor My Eyes" made me start crying. And crying. And so I turned off the music and shut the laptop and went to wash my face and brush my teeth and have some water. I looked in the mirror after all of that had been done. Still crying. I wasn't even sure why I was crying at that point, but the more frustrated I became to get myself to stop, the harder I cried. Eventually I faced the world with splotchy cheeks as I walked Gus down the street and back and then headed off to work.
3. Singing along with Queen songs. This is an important state of being even for the non-sleep-deprived people of the world.
4. Uncontrollable paranoia. At work, my boss, JLL (John Lithgow Lite), didn't greet me as he usually did. And, around lunchtime, he was sitting in my co-worker's office, talking to her in low tones. I made out a few phrases -- "controlled access," "password," "problem." OH GOD. I clutched my hair. THEY HAD CONTACTED THE IT DEPARTMENT AND GOTTEN MY INTERNET ACCESS LOGS AND THEY WERE READING MY JOURNAL AND THEY WERE GOING TO CUT OFF MY WEB ACCESS. I was sure this was what it was. My boss went to lunch and came back and started talking to the company president. I was convinced that this conversation was about how categorically crappy I am at doing anything that relates to translation project management, and how I should be banned from touching any and all translation projects. I was afraid to leave for lunch because I was sure that as soon as I left, an all-office meeting would be called to discuss how uniformly awful I am at everything. I ran across the street and bought a Subway sandwich and came back. I munched, and worked on the Urdenglish, and waited for JLL to ask me if I could join him in his office for a moment, please.
It never happened. Although I still wouldn't be terribly surprised if, at some point, they tell me to never touch a translation project again. It'd be a welcome request.
5. Terrifying giddiness. Maybe JLL stayed away from my office because he knew I was really busy. When he finally did stop by, late in the afternoon, he mild-manneredly asked me what was going on, expecting a typically mild-mannered response. "Oh my God, you're never going to believe this," I told him, "but I've been working on this project with the articles from Pakistan for almost 36 hours!" And then I started laughing, and couldn't stop. JLL looked at me with deep concern. "I hope you make it home okay," he said. "We want you back here on Monday."
The epilogue: After some help from the Dominican Jew, the project was finished. I drove home at 7 -- very carefully. Even when I've had enough sleep, I hardly ever venture into anything beyond the far-right lane of Atlanta's highways. Adam and I were supposed to go to a shindig at Jason and Susan's house, but I doubted that spoken communication, alcohol consumption, or any combination of the two, would be very good for me that night. So we stayed home and watched The African Queen, which is what I'd been planning to do before any social invites came up. After the movie, I was able to squeak out a few words in my best Katharine Hepburn accent before falling into a merciful twelve hours of sleep.