Prototype
Simply glue a bunch of electromyographic sensors to your face, mouth the words and voilàthereyougovottak!
Not sure why but this gives me the creeps. Maybe because you have to keep a blank face for it to work – erase one of the most natural and revealing forms of expression to be able to communicate with an elementary level vocabulary.
Although, the accompanying article does say that it could help with diplomatic talks – Hello. Hola. Goodameecha ….. Howsthemissus? ….. Yo wassup, man? Arriba hombre? Helloooo? Hola. – and that it’s another positive step towards ridding us of the need for translators.
Obsolete factory workers of the world, I feel your pain.
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Comment
- Don’t throw in your union card just yet. What about all the books that will still need translating?
The mother of a guy I know is Edith Grossman, and when I met her I gushed like a fangirl, thanking her for translating Love in the Time of Cholera. I can’t even count all the works of literature I never would have been able to read if it weren’t for the art and skill of translation.
— ali Oct 29, 1:57pm # - Kah-reepy!
— Gordo Oct 30, 5:55pm # - I was the only dissenting voice when the idiots hired to re-design our school website announced with great bravado that with one button, the site would be instantly translated into any number of languages.
Now, two weeks after launch, the translation button has been, uh, temporarily removed, after an embarrassing barrage of complaints. Yeah, I’m the smug one in the corner, muttering, “Told you so!,” and shaking her head in disgust. Instant translation? Not in our lifetime.
— wizmo Oct 31, 4:34pm # - When I was in high school I told a guy I wanted to be a translator. He told me I had no future because technology would soon replace human translation. I told him that it was never going to happen… I hope the day doesn’t when I have to swallow my words… Don’t think it will, though?
— Cat Nov 2, 1:01am # - No comments enabled on your closing-shop post, so: hell! You’ll be missed. I hope you get the bug again.
— language hat Nov 2, 3:46pm # - First textism and now you. There is nothing good on the internets anymore. Good Luck!
— Kenneth Nov 2, 4:13pm # - Thank you for adding some class to the internet all these years. You shall be missed.
— Gordo Nov 2, 4:28pm # - Thank you, indeed: I’m going to miss visiting Open Brackets…
— BD Nov 2, 10:42pm # - Instant-translation, it will happen! (read Kurtzweil). So yes, maybe un-employed; but not without means. As by then, you surely will have patented that very personal, high-quality translation style, which will be bought by big companies – the likes of Google – and used in the ‘New Economy’, where auto-translation users can pick, from a long list, their favorite “Gail Armstrong” idiom.
Thank you for many years of fine ‘esprit’. It got me laughing, thinking, confused, grabbing my dictionary. It teached me a few valuable lessons, not the least: Never to ask my daughter’s friend to mow the lawn at 7 in the morning.
Happy crafting
— Raf Nov 3, 12:55am # - First the Daily Mumps, now you.
It seems to me that there is more noise, less quality sound on the Internet and in life. Your site was a joy to visit and will be missed.
Thanks for sharing a ‘flake of your life’.
— Jerry Nov 3, 1:39pm # - Thank you for all your wit and wisdom. It’s funny how when a blog stops, even with an archive or a ‘best of’ collection of posts still around, it’s not the same when the presence behind them is ‘gone’. An appropriate compilation format needs to be found.
— Gabriel Nov 3, 1:57pm # - Thanks for the interesting posts and reading. Your insight will be missed.
— Dean Nov 3, 4:24pm # - Damn! I just discovered your blog – well, a “hush of librarians” will ease my pain (and endear me to those I depend upon).
— RP Nov 3, 4:56pm # - No, certainly not unexpected, but sad in the extreme nevertheless. A window on a beautiful garden closes, and my little world is the less for it.
Thank you for your ferocious humor and poignant insights, for all the word games, all the times you made me think and google and all the other wonderful folks you introduced me to.
And I’ll be looking for that book to roll out now (no pressure or anything)
— wizmo Nov 3, 5:06pm # - I’m sorry you’re not posting anymore. I discovered your blog recently and was enjoying reading it.
All the best!!
— Cat Nov 3, 5:39pm # - “Fare forward, travellers! not escaping from the past
into different lives, or into any future;
you are not the same people who left that station
or who will arrive at any terminus,
while the narrowing rails slide together behind you;
and on the deck of the drumming liner
watching the furrow that widens behind you,
you shall not think ‘the past is finished’
or ‘the future is before us’.
‘Fare forward, you who think that you are voyaging;... Fare forward.’
Not fare well, but fare forward, voyagers.”
TSE
Thank you Gail – I appreciated your Site and wish you well with your family and whatever you choose to do next.
— GMR Nov 3, 10:07pm # - Gail,
the weight is gone, but i will miss this very much.
thanks for it all, and best wishes.
— Kim Nov 4, 2:59am # - Aw, thanks so much for all the sweet and generous words here, and from everyone who wrote. It really means a lot to me.
If the damn book ever comes to be, I’m going to pad the odds by putting you all at the top of the list for review copies.
— gail Nov 5, 11:40am # - Please do keep writing, Gail! Even if I will no longer be able to enjoy it on a regular basis, I look forward to holding a book of it in my hands some day.
Your touches of Canadiana humour (e.g. Drinkin’ games with Margaret Atwood) always made this fellow Canuck ex-pat translator smile.
And some day we’ll hook up for that beer!
— Mara B Nov 5, 4:47pm # - I really enjoyed your occasional challenges in the comments (such as new titles for love songs wherein the object of desire is replaced by a food), and your generous snippets of original fiction and nonfiction. Thanks and best wishes!
— Amy Nov 8, 8:27pm # - I have been a loyal reader for about a year. I never commented, just enjoyed. I will sorely miss you. As a new parent, I especially loved the humanity and compassion you showed in talking about your children.
I wish you would reconsider closing down.
— kate Nov 9, 1:44am # - Oh no! I know how you feel, but why not take a hiatus of 3 months instead, then see if you want to start blogging again…
— Martin Deering Nov 12, 10:21pm # - I’ve been mostly just watching (reading, few comments) for over three years (4 years?) and yours was the first blog I linked to when I set my own up.
I have, consistently, enjoyed the writing of yourself and those of your commentors during all this time. I take it this will be up for a while longer, I’ll try and get back to some older posts I missed while I can.
Best wishes to you and your family!
— ~A Nov 14, 12:09am # - It is my opinion that you are one of the best contemporary writers now working – in whatever medium. I wish you silence, stillness, leisure – all the things you may or may not need to continue. Your voice is vital, eruidite, non-dogmatic, perceptive, and playful. Don’t look back.
— moj Nov 24, 11:20pm # - To everything there is a beginning, and to everything there is an and An and? Must have meant end. So much for the perfection of the human species, especially this representative, or the culprit may have been a defective keyboard.
Gail, don’t know how much you remember of our communication over the years, I remember much of it, among which is what you expressed on your web site regarding the enigmatic word “get”,
I have it resolved. There are only three things you can get out of life. You can get older, you can get dead, and you can get, by virtue of the second get, begotten of everything you ever got.
So, Gail, the whole meaning of life can be expressed in one word: get. Yep, get here (born), get out (dead), get screwed (everything that happens betwinxt).
Gail, write that book, just one, I beg of you, amongst all of the books that are contained within you. I know the travails of getting (there’s that word again) published, and thereafter a profit resulting.
Write the book, send me a copy of the manuscript, and we will not only get (that word again) it published, but also make it profitable. Included amongst my many transgressions, I reluctantly admit that I have been an Attorney at Law, an owner of a real estate corporation and of a title and escrow corporation. I will do my best in this endeavor, and ask nothing for my effort.
Gail, do it for yourself. I won’t try to inspire you further by stating something you already know.
A bientot,
Jack
— Jack Dec 3, 4:36am #
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