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Friday, April 16, 2021

Jeffrey Aronson: When I Use a Word . . . New, and not so new, medical words - The BMJ - The BMJ - Dictionary

The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is updated every three months (“on a quarterly basis” as they put it—they mean “quarterly”). The latest list of updates and additions, published in March 2021, contains 744 items. There are four categories:

Words that are completely new to the dictionary This list (151 entries, of which 41 have two new definitions each) starts with “à la Chinoise” and ends with “zoomer”. A zoomer is either a member of Generation Z (Figure 1) or, as a more recent usage has it, a baby-boomer who has reached middle-age or retirement age. More succinctly, a baby boomer who hasn’t grown up. As a baby boomer, I recognize the phenomenon. Perhaps “Zoomer”, one who communicates using Zoom, will make it into the dictionary next time. The verb to Zoom is already there. I’m a frequent Zoomer, so there’s an example to cite. Other meanings include a Nintendo flight simulator joystick, a robotic toy dog, and a Canadian radio station.
New sub-entries Compound words or phrases that are now included under other headwords (235 entries). The list starts with “aceboy”, included under “ace”, a colloquial term for a close male friend, said to have originated as an African–American usage, but now mainly used in Bermuda. It ends with “zither-like”.
New senses of old words This list (322 entries) starts with “abstain”, meaning “to stay away from one’s workplace, school, etc”, a South Asian usage. It ends with “zizzy”, “characterized by or involving a buzzing or whizzing sound”.
Additions to unrevised entries New senses, compound words, or phrases that were already included as draft entries appended to the end of existing entries, now fully incorporated (36 entries). These are also included in the other categories.

Figure 1. Conventional and alternative names for the generations of Western populations; taken from various sources, including the US Census Bureau

Items that are new to the dictionary do not have to have been recently coined—the dictionary is constantly catching up. Figure 2 shows a frequency distribution of the numbers of entries whose first citations date from each century since 1100; some are surprisingly old.

Figure 2. Frequency distribution of the dates of the first citations of the new entries in the OED, March 2021 (excludes one entry cited from early Old English)

The newly entered words of medical, or quasi-medical, interest are listed in Table 1. The list includes two pharmacological compounds.

Table 1. New medical or quasi-medical entries in the OED included in the March 2021 list

Gentamicin was first described in 1963, so it is surprising that it has taken so long for it to appear in the dictionary. Although the name was originally spelt “gentamycin”, the spelling was changed early on to “gentamicin” on the recommendation of the American Medical Association’s generic names committee, because, unlike many other antibiotics whose names end in –mycin, it was isolated from a genus of Micromonospora, not from Streptomyces organisms. Even so, a PubMed search shows that the spelling with –mycin occurs in about 10% of publications. Indeed, if you did not search databases for incorrect as well as correct spellings of gentamicin, you would miss several publications, including systematic reviews, that use the incorrect spelling.

The other compound, gentianine, seems to have made little impact, although it was mentioned in Chemical Abstracts as long ago as 1946. A PubMed search yielded only 23 hits, mostly in vitro and animal studies. It’s said to have hypotensive, muscle relaxant, and anti-inflammatory properties.

One set of entries that stands out, as it were, from the list are the five slang terms for the penis. This is by no means an exhaustive list, although one might get exhausted just thinking about it (Table 2).

Table 2. Slang and euphemistic terms for the penis. Apart from the OED, my sources include:
Ayto J. Euphemisms. London: Bloomsbury, 1993.
Holder, RW. The Faber Dictionary of Euphemisms. London: Faber & Faber, 1969.
Holder, RW. TA Dictionary of Euphemisms. Oxford: OUP, 1995.
Neaman J, Silver C. In Other Words. A Thesaurus of Euphemisms. UK: Angus & Robertson, 1991.

But the term I like best is “gentleman scientist”, defined as “a financially independent man who studies science, typically without having a salaried attachment to a scientific body or institution”. The dictionary cites an example from 1895 and also an article from a 1975 issue of the New Scientist magazine: “The days of the gentleman scientist are over; we’re professionals, we’re paid well …”. Consequently, the dictionary labels this “now chiefly historical”, but if that is so it should, in my view, be revived. It might be nice to be thought of as a gentleman scientist, were it not for the fact, judging from the activities of many twitterati, that the juxtaposition is a contradiction in terms.

Jeffrey Aronson is a clinical pharmacologist, working in the Centre for Evidence Based Medicine in Oxford’s Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences. He is also president emeritus of the British Pharmacological Society.

Competing interests: None declared.

This week’s interesting integer: 319

Geometric numbers

319 is a toothpick number, as illustrated in the diagrams below

(a) Lay down a toothpick (black)
(b) Add a toothpick at each end at right angles (red)
(c) Repeat (orange)
(d) Repeat (green)

(e) Keep repeating; after 25 cycles you will reach the pattern below, which contains 319 toothpicks

Named numbers

319 is a happy number; calculate 3² + 1² + 9² = 91; then 9² + 1² = 82; 8² + 2² = 68; 6² + 8² = 100; and 1² + 0² + 0² = 1; the happy numbers up to 331 are shown in the figure below:

super-d numbers, n, are such that d × n^d contains a string of d digits; so, like 318, 319 is a super-2 number, since 2 × 319² = 203522, which contains 22 as a substring
the prime factors of 319 are 11 and 29, whose digits sum to 13, as do the digits of 319 itself; that makes 319 a Smith number; since its digits are all different it is therefore also a hoax number
319 is an Ulam number
the divisors of 319 are 1, 11, 29, and 319, which sum to 360, which is relatively prime to 319 (they have no divisors in common); that makes 319 a Duffinian number
the mean of its divisors = 360/4 = 90; since that is an integer, 319 is an arithmetic number
319 is a lucky number
319 = the 56^th prime (P56 = 263) + 56

Semiprimes

319 is a semiprime = 11 × 29; since its two factors are of equal length, it is also a brilliant number; it is also an emirpimes, since its reversal, 913 = 11 × 83

Sums of 319

319 is the sum of consecutive integers in three ways:

159 + 160
24 + 25 + 26 + 27 + 28 + 29 + 30 + 31 + 32 + 33 + 34
4 + 5 + 6 + 7 + 8 + 9 + 10 + 11 + 12 + 13 + 14 + 15 + 16 + 17 + 18 + 19 + 20 + 21 + 22 + 23 + 24 + 25

319 is the sum of 11 consecutive odd numbers = 19 + 21 + 23 + 25 + 27 + 29 + 31 + 33 + 35 + 37 + 39
319 is the sum of three consecutive primes = 103 + 107 + 109
319 is the sum of consecutive composite numbers in four ways:

159 + 160
105 + 106 + 108
35 + 36 + 38 + 39 + 40 + 42 + 44 + 45
26 + 27 + 28 + 30 + 32 + 33 + 34 + 35 + 36 + 38

319 is the sum of four squares but no fewer. Lagrange’s four square theorem, which he proved in 1770, states that all integers can be expressed as the sum of four squares. However, although 284 can be so expressed (284 = 1² + 2² + 5² + 17²), it cannot be expressed as the sum of two or three squares; not all numbers have this property

The first three squares: 1, 4, and 9

319 = (9² × 4² × 1²) – (9 × 4 × 1) – 941

Pythagorean

There are four Pythagorean triples whose short legs are 319:

319, 360, 481
319, 1740, 1769
319, 4620, 4631
319, 50880, 50881

Of these, the first and fourth are primitive

Miscellaneous

Indefiniteness: Bad Translation/Lack Of Definition Redux - Intellectual Property - United States - Mondaq News Alerts - Translation

United States: Indefiniteness: Bad Translation/Lack Of Definition Redux

16 April 2021

Oblon, McClelland, Maier & Neustadt, L.L.P

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I previously wrote about a Federal Circuit Opinion that affirmed a lower court ruling that the term “half-liquid” was indefinite despite the apparent mis-translation of the original Italian term “semiliquido” https://ift.tt/3wWWcV7. On March 1, 2021, the losing party (IBSA Institut Biochimique, S.A., Altergon, S.A., IBSA Pharma Inc.) filed a petition for writ of certiorari in the U.S. Supreme Court and so I thought it would be interesting to take another look at this case. Indeed, the petitioner presented a novel question for review of the lower courts' decision of indefiniteness of the term at issue. The question presented in the petition is:

Whether, pursuant to the United States' obligations under the TRIPS Agreement, codified at 19 U.S.C. § 3511, a court construing the claims of a U.S. patent may give no weight to a foreign priority patent application, despite its submission to the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office during prosecution of the patent-in-question, because it is written in a foreign language and exhibits minor differences from the U.S. patent resulting from a translator's judgment.

In essence the argument presented in the petition is that the Federal Circuit decision improperly treated a foreign applicant/inventor differently because of the translation error (semiliquido apparently is correctly translated to semi-liquid not half liquid) because the lower courts allegedly excluded the understanding of the inventors' in their native Italian. This statement from page 5 is illustrative:

If the lower courts' view holds, precedent will be set to give foreign applications no weight in claim construction proceedings, as the types of differences the courts found dispositive here are common with translations, no matter the foreign language. That rule would flatly contravene the requirement that a foreign application be treated equally as a domestic one. And the rule would have profound implications for foreign applicants' right to claim priority to their domestic applications.

On April 5, 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court denied, without explanation, the petition. My commentary on the case remains: humans make errors so pay careful attention to translations, particularly to important features of the invention. Despite the petitioner's arguments here, as most patent practitioners should be aware there are various times during the life cycle of a patent application/patent when corrections can be made to the specification and/or claims, e.g., after filing, during prosecution, before issuance, and post-issuance via certificates of correction (for relatively minor errors) and reissues. I am not aware of any instances where foreign applicants have any disadvantages in these types of correction procedures at the USPTO.

The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.

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Six Compelling SFF Works in Translation - tor.com - Translation

There’s plenty of compelling science fiction, fantasy, and genre-defying fiction being written and published in English; of that there is no doubt. But there’s even more work being written in these genres in other languages that isn’t necessarily appearing in English translation; a quick look at the overall numbers on translation bears that out. There are people and institutions pushing back against this—Ken Liu’s work as an editor and translator comes to mind, as does Restless Books’ commitment to releasing an array of Cuban science fiction.

They aren’t the only ones working to increase the amount of translated work out there, however. What follows is a look at six books that recently appeared in translation. Some are distinctly fantastical, science fictional, or horrific; others blend elements of all three genres. They’re all compelling reads in their own right; they’re also a very small fraction of the genre work being written in other languages.

Strange Beasts of China by Yan Ge, translated by Jeremy Tiang

The protagonist of Yan Ge’s novel lives in the Chinese city of Yong’an, a place that—at least in this novel—is also home to a host of beasts, which mostly resemble humans. The first chapter introduces us to the first in a long line of strange yet familiar creatures: “Sorrowful beasts never smile. If they do, they can’t stop—not until they die. Hence their name.” And if Yan’s book was simply a selection of surreal vignettes centered around the beasts, a la Jorge Luis Borges or Italo Calvino, it would likely be compelling enough.

That isn’t the case here, though. The sorrowful beasts tend to have a few other abilities that take the narrative in unexpected (and body horror-esque) directions, and they’re far from the most uncanny creatures readers will encounter here. And as the narrator ventures deeper into the city’s subcultures, she discovers uncomfortable truths about her mentor and her own past. The novel as a whole abounds with moments where vivid imagery coincides with an ever-present sense of danger.

Fauna by Christiane Vadnais, translated by Pablo Strauss

What happens when a technologically-advanced community collides with a sense of environmental devastation? In the linked stories that comprise her book Fauna, Christiane Vadnais takes readers inside Shivering Heights, where cataclysmic weather abounds and the lines between human, animal, and post-human have become blurred.

There’s “Ursus Maritimus,” for instance, whose central character studies her own body as it takes on some distinctive qualities: “That night, new follicles appear on the tips of her shoulder bones. They are coarse and perfectly aligned.” But, as with the works of J.G, Ballard and Jeff VanderMeer, this transformation is depicted as a kind of transcendent evolution. For some of Vadnais’s characters, these changes are grounds for panic; for others, it’s akin to a religious experience.

Girls Against God by Jenny Hval, translated by Marjam Idriss

To say that Jenny Hval has an impressive creative range is an understatement: over the last decade, Hval has made a number of surreal, compelling albums that avoid easy classification. Turns out she’s equally talented in another medium: her novel Paradise Rot, which appeared in translation in 2018 and offered a haunting tale abounding with dilapidated spaces and characters who may or may not be ghosts.

Girls Against God is even more ambitious, with a plot that blends time travel, black metal, witchcraft, and film theory. The novel’s narrative leaps around in time; it’s structured, at least initially, as one woman’s memories of her youth and her discovery of art; all the while, various uncanny elements lurk just below the surface—some in the ideas the narrator has for film projects. When the novel finally does move out of the realm of realism, though, it’s in an unexpected way, one which adds another dimension to this wide-ranging work.

That Time of Year by Marie NDiaye, translated by Jordan Stump

Parisians Herman and Rose, along with their son, have nearly concluded their vacation in a rural village as this novel opens. And then Rose and the child vanish mysteriously, plunging Herman into a bizarre quest to locate them—one which reveals that the cozy village in which they were staying takes on bizarre new qualities when the tourist season is over.

NDiaye’s fiction often begins in a realistic place and segues into the offbeat: her earlier My Heart Hemmed In begins as a kind of social thriller before morphing into a subtle variety of body horror. Here, NDiaye takes the reader to a world of constant surveillance and metaphysical transformations, like something born from a Kōbō Abe fever dream.

Cars on Fire by Mónica Ramón Ríos, translated by Robin Myers

What makes for a dystopian story? For some writers, there’s only one answer: a society that is distinct from any that currently exists on the planet. In the stories contained within Mónica Ramón Ríos’s Cars on Fire, though, a dystopia can be a lot closer to home—anywhere from central Chile to suburban New Jersey. For her, a dystopia isn’t a place so much as it is a state of mind.

In the final section of Cars on Fire, “Scenes From the Spectral Zone,” Ríos takes what was implicit in the rest of the book and makes it far more overt. Here, bodies are malleable and sinister forces surveil the landscape. And there’s also the story of the Extermination, a man-eating swamp creature who’s also one of the more sympathetic characters in the book.The opening sentence of the story where he appears offers a sense of the style and mood Ríos utilizes: “The Extermination showed up a few weeks before the machines came to Zanjón de la Aguada and drained the swamp (rank, fetid, black).”

The Dark Library by Cyrille Martinez, translated by Joseph Patrick Stancil

The idea of books with a mind of their own gets a distinctive spin in The Dark Library, along with a take on libraries that’s both loving and satirical. The setting is a world-famous library—“a genuine treasure, the treasure of the national language, the wealth of written heritage,” as Martinez writes. And while The Dark Library does offer readers a few musings on books and the internet, the real draw ends up being the presence of sentient books.

Among their number? The Island Was Almost Deserted, Depressed Poem, and The Angry Young Book—all of which have very strong opinions about when they should be read. Throw in a few mysterious societies and a couple of metafictional layers and you have an offbeat but charming work of fiction.

Originally published December 2020

Tobias Carroll is the managing editor of Vol.1 Brooklyn. He is the author of the short story collection Transitory (Civil Coping Mechanisms) and the novel Reel (Rare Bird Books).

Papercup CEO and Science Advisor on Speech Translation and Synthetic Voices - Slator - Translation

2 hours ago

Speech startup Papercup’s Jesse Shemen (CEO) and Simon King (Science Advisor), join SlatorPod to discuss how they develop synthetic voices to make videos accessible in multiple languages.

The two talk about the underlying components of the Papercup workflow and outline the role that technology — speech recognition (ASR), machine translation (MT), and speech-to-text (STT) — as well as humans play in the creation of multilingual videos.

Simon, a Professor of Speech Processing at the University of Edinburgh, discusses the evolution of text-to-speech technology, the main technical hurdles in producing highly natural, emotional voices, as well as the adoption and acceptance curve for synthetic voices.

Jesse shares some of Papercup’s company milestones, which include raising a total of ca. USD 14m in seed and series A rounds. He also explains why there is room for many different startups in the multilingual speech and video translation space.

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While Papercup has an ambitious goal of making videos accessible in any language, Jesse says startups will likely expand the market rather than replace traditional dubbing, particularly for high-end production environments.

First up, Florian and Esther discuss the latest language industry news — with a multilingual speech technology slant this week. The duo touch on NDVIA’s real-time MT offering, a mouse that transcribes and translates your voice at the press of a button, and Microsoft’s USD 19.7bn acquisition of AI speech technology firm Nuance.

In language industry-adjacent funding, the two discuss data-for-AI leader and Appen rival Scale, which doubled its valuation (to a whopping USD 7bn) after announcing they had raised a further USD 325m in funding.

Returning to the core of translation and localization, they talk about signs of a boom in the language industry, pointing to Super Agencies reporting strong results, anecdotal evidence from busier-than-ever LSP staff, a soaring Language Industry Job Index, and RWS shares (SlatorPro) that serve as a bellwether given company’s broad sector exposure.

Subscribe to SlatorPod on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts.

Stream Slator webinars, workshops, and conferences on the Slator Video-on-Demand channel.

Four Different Approaches to Translating a Movie Title - Film School Rejects - Translation

on movie Welcome to The Queue — your daily distraction of curated video content sourced from across the web. Today, we’re watching a video essay breaking down four different approaches to translations of movie titles.

If you’ve ever had the pleasure of learning another language, you’ll know that translation is an art, not a science. Sometimes the phraseology of one culture has no equivalent in another’s. And sometimes capturing the spirit of an evocative turn of phrase involves transforming things entirely.

The same, of course, holds true for movie title translations. In addition to properly describing a film and managing the expectations of a foreign audience, translated titles must also navigate a minefield that runs the gambit from cultural sensitivities to market preferences.

The results, at times, are hilarious. In Danish, Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995) becomes the equally bombastic Die Hard: Mega Hard. In Italian, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) becomes the rather literal If You Leave Me, I Delete You. And in Mandarin, the Arnold Schwarzenegger male pregnancy comedy Junior (1994) becomes the arguably not that far off Son of Devil.

Speaking of China, let’s pop over to the video essay below, which unpacks four different approaches to movie title translations, as seen in Chinese cinema. The methods are, briefly: (1) to translate literally; (2) to reinterpret; (3) to be poetic, and (4) to fudge the title to make it sell better.

Armed with plentiful examples ranging from the hilarious to the insightful, the essay boasts explanations galore to underline the strategy and thought process behind seemingly random movie title translations.

Watch “Trope Talk: Movie Title Translations | April Fool’s Essay“:

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Who made this?

This video on movie title translations was created by Accented Cinema, a Canadian-based YouTube video essay series with a focus on foreign cinema. You can subscribe to Accented Cinema for bi-weekly uploads here. You can follow them on Twitter here. This video is narrated by Naomi SV, whose own account you can check out here.