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Why isn't 'lumberjill' in the dictionary? NewsCenterMaine.com WCSH-WLBZMonday, March 28, 2022
Why isn't 'lumberjill' in the dictionary yet? - NewsCenterMaine.com WCSH-WLBZ - Dictionary
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Why isn't 'lumberjill' in the dictionary yet? NewsCenterMaine.com WCSH-WLBZPakistans new political dictionary - Geo News - Dictionary
Sportsmen-turned-politician Prime Minister Imran Khan has changed Pakistan’s political dictionary by introducing words that are reserved for sports.
These words include “kaptan” (captain), “umpire”, “third umpire”, “match-fixing”, “wickets”, “ground” and “unfit”, amongst others. This vocabulary is now part of Pakistan’s political terminology and has been taken up by his rivals as well.
No prizes for guessing that the word “umpire” or the term “neutral umpire” refers to the military establishment.
I remember how once Imran Khan’s old colleague, the late Naeem ul Haque, had requested me to not discuss cricket with Khan as he is now in politics.
“Yaar, he is new in politics so please discuss more politics with him,” Haque had said to me, during Imran Khan’s visit to the Karachi Press Club after the 2002 election.
But Khan has not shied away from bringing sports into politics. In fact, he has boasted about introducing the term “neutral umpire”. Now, even his opponents use this term and claim that the “umpires”, therefore the establishment, is now neutral and not taking sides.
This is a deviation from the actual word. As in cricket, the umpire is expected and trusted by both teams to fairly judge without any prejudice or bias game. Both sides must accept the umpire’s decision, even if at times it goes against them.
Any team or skipper, who does not accept the umpires or referee’s decision faces disciplinary action, including at times a ban.
But politics is a different ball game. In other countries, the referee is the election commission, which is tasked with ensuring a free and fair election. However, here the umpire is the establishment.
Even in sports now the umpire has become controversial. Teams and players have started to protest the umpire’s decisions. One reason is the amount of money that has started pouring into the game, and that too through illegal means.
It was in the post-Kerry Packer era in the mid-1970s that players, from different countries, were lured by the lust for money over national pride, leading to a major revolt in almost every cricket playing nation.
It was at that time that Pakistan’s former captain Imran Khan floated the idea of a “neutral umpire”, meaning that instead of having an umpire from the host country, the umpire should be from any third country to avoid any chances of prejudice or bias.
Now, in addition to a neutral umpire, cricket also has a third umpire called a “match referee”. Moreover, technology is used these days to minimize disputes.
Imran Khan was regarded as a hero after the 1992 World Cup. Soon after, Khan joined politics in 1996. During that time he was also lauded for his role in building a cancer hospital in Lahore.
Fast forward to 2022, Khan is again talking about the role of the umpire. As mentioned above, in other countries, the referee is the election commission of that country.
A classic example of this is India, where the commission is independent and powerful enough to even de-seat a sitting prime minister or stop him or her from an election campaign.
The beauty is that all political parties in India regard the commission’s decision. That is primarily why elections have never been controversial in India, with regards to the election commission.
In Pakistan, in the last 50 years, there have been only one or two elections that have been regarded as free and fair across the board. The 1970 election was held under the Legal Framework Order, as there was no constitution in place at that time. Yet, everyone accepted the result.
One of the reasons why Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto became the first Civilian Martial Law Administrator was due to the constitutional vacuum back then. In 1973, the first unanimous constitution was adopted by the assembly.
Unfortunately, the spirit of accepting poll results did not last long and the 1977 election was disputed.
Later, during the martial law of General Zia ul Haq, many controversial clauses were introduced in the otherwise suspended constitution, including 58-2(b), through which the president was given the power to dismiss an elected government or sack the prime minister.
These clauses weaken the political system and after every two to three years elected prime ministers were sent packing.
But improvements were also made to the electoral process from the 18th amendment and the election commission of Pakistan was empowered. The government of the day now cannot change the chief election commission (CEC). Further, the veto power of the CEC has been withdrawn and now all members of the commission have one vote each.
What holds it back is its lack of funds and resources to conduct polls. That is what the government must look into.
Still, the commission has enough powers to ensure a free and fair election. It can even direct the Election Tribunal to decide election petitions within four months.
Therefore, there is no need for a “third” or “neutral” umpire except for the election commission.
While Prime Minister Imran Khan is now questioning if umpires should be “neutral” or not, he should go back to his earlier stance of impartiality, the one that he took during his cricketing days.
Let the election commission play its due role.
Lack of fair play or accusations of impartiality can ruin a good sports game, just as much as it can ruin politics and voters' trust in the democratic system.
The writer is a columnist and analyst of GEO, The News and Jang. He tweets @MazharAbbasGEO
How Elden Ring's Silliest Memes Get Lost in Translation - IGN - IGN - Translation
Bretwulfo kept stumbling across a message that will be familiar to anyone who’s played Elden Ring: “Try finger, but hole.” At this point, many players would probably roll their eyes at finding yet another use of the game’s messaging system to graffiti crude humour across FromSoft’s incredible fantasy world. The problem was that Bretwulfo is Brazilian, and plays the game in Portuguese – that oft-seen message simply does not translate the same way.
“I was always plunging into holes thinking there was going to be something in it,” Bretwulfo says. “I only got what it was supposed to mean after someone placed it on the ass of a corpse.”
For players who don’t speak English as their first language, Elden Ring’s many meme-messages can be far more of a troll than they were ever intended to be – and English-speaking players may well be getting just as confused by some international equivalents.
For players who don’t speak English as their first language, Elden Ring’s many meme-messages can be far more of a troll than they were ever intended to be.
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“Try finger, but hole”; “Fort, night”; “Dog”; these are just some of the many memes that the English-speaking Elden Ring community have been flooding the game’s messaging system with over the last month. While they might seem like strange phrases in isolation, they’re a product of the game’s communications being restricted by design. You can’t just freely write whatever you want in Elden Ring and stamp it outside some boss fog. Everyone has the same limited number of phrases to choose from, all of which can be cleverly combined to help or hinder fellow Tarnished (it’s usually hinder).
What you may not have known is that the game’s messaging system operates on a global scale – and understandably these player-posted phrases aren’t fully localised for other languages. Instead, they’re translated quite literally – and it’s led to all kinds of international confusion in The Lands Between.
The most famous early example comes from a Twitter user named ETC_only, who recently posted about their experience with the “Fort, night” meme. Anyone who plays Elden Ring in English will easily recognise this for what it is -- a pun on the only game on Earth where Neymar can beat up Kratos next to a stage Travis Scott has performed on. But ETC is from Japan, and the translation is far too literal for the joke to carry over. ETC’s resulting Twitter post about the issue went viral, roughly translating to:
"I've been searching for a big night-only event at some fort because I see messages like 'Fort, night' everywhere in Elden Ring, but apparently people playing in English are [just posting] Fort and Night."
ETC spent a significant amount of time trying to trigger nighttime events in Elden Ring purely due to the number of “Fort, night” messages they came across. To make matters worse, Elden Ring actually does feature a variety of different scenarios that are locked to different times of day -- bosses like Night’s Cavalry, Deathbird, and Bell Bearing Hunter will never appear while the sun is up. In that context, when you come across a note saying “Fort, night”, it’s only natural to assume that someone or something is planning to throw down at Stormveil or Castle Morne once dusk hits.
IGN recently had a chat with ETC about their time with Elden Ring, as well as several other players from various different countries who echoed their experience. At time of writing, we have been informed of similar misinterpretations occurring in Japanese, Chinese, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Polish, and more -- and that’s just for “Fort, night.”
“The ‘Fort, night' one did something very different to me,” Erikviking98, an Italian, tells IGN. “For me, the situation got worse. One of the first times I saw the ‘Fort, night’ message was in front of the Warmaster’s Shack. If you go [here] at night, you will find a boss. The problem comes because in Italy, the word that translators use to say ‘Fort’ is unusual to indicate a fortress -- the same word is more commonly used to say ‘strong’ or ‘powerful’.
“So, in my eyes, the message was actually saying to look for a strong enemy at nighttime. Since that first time there actually was one, I was misled to believe all of them meant the same thing. Every time I found one of those messages -- which are basically always found in empty shacks like the Warmaster’s one [presumably because they slightly resemble Fortnite’s rickety wooden constructions] -- I thought there was a nighttime-only boss. I came back to the closest Site of Grace countless times to set it to nighttime.”
We've heard about misinterpretations occurring in Japanese, Chinese, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Polish, and more - and that’s just for 'Fort, night.'
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This is just one meme that unintentionally caused players from non-English-speaking countries to conduct weird and unpredictable experiments. There are lots of other phrases that are translated a bit too literally. ETC explains that messages like “bug ahead” posted in response to weird gameplay behaviours don’t really work in Japanese, because “bug” becomes “虫,” which only means “insect.” Phrases like “Edge, lord” -- pertaining to Ensha, the woman who stands with her arms folded outside Gideon’s study -- are similarly confusing. Lofkor says this appears as “Limits, sir” in Spanish, which led them to believe it had something to do with flirting. Hilariously, she will never actually talk to you -- any attempt to speak to her will only end in silent tears.
Of course, these examples are only for English translations to international versions of the game. It can just as easily work the other way round – ETC alone can think of plenty of other potential mistranslations.
“「この先、馬はないぞ」（no horse ahead）is Chinese internet slang for ‘liar ahead’ that makes no sense in Japanese or English,” they explain. This was later corroborated by Hkgpeanut, a Mandarin-speaking player from Hong Kong:
“The Mandarin for horse(馬) sounds similar to mother(媽), and saying ‘no mother ahead’ [is] similar to ‘f**ker ahead’. If you find it in front of a ‘hidden path ahead’ it’s probably a Mandarin way of saying ‘liar ahead’. Curses related to mothers are common for Mandarin speakers.”
While this hasn’t had as much of an impact on English-speaking players as “Fort, night” has had on people who speak other languages, it could still have an undesirable effect. If an English speaker leaves a message saying “No horse ahead,” another player will likely perceive it as a warning that the in-game horse, Torrent, is unusable in the next area. If they were to unequip their Spectral Steed Whistle -- which would be an efficient choice given that it speeds up cycling through consumables -- they’d possibly never realise that, actually, it was just a Mandarin-speaking player bemoaning someone for making them whack a wall for the 50th time (even if that does work in one specific area). You could have used your horse all along. Sorry.
ETC also wonders if 蛇 (snake), a message often posted in grass or near ladders, isn’t always as obvious a reference to Metal Gear Solid’s Snake for English-speaking players as it is to Japanese ones.
Another potential point of confusion you may have come across: how many of you are wondering why you keep coming across the word “Grass?” Does it mean you should go out and search through grass? Is it a bastardisation of “Grace”? Has someone found a funky farm in Limgrave?
“Grass means lol [for Japanese players],” ETC says. “The word itself became [so] much of a meme that you don't really have to find something laughable, you can just put a「草」message in front of a piece of grass and it would ironically be funny, since most Japanese people would find it hard to interpret the word with its former meaning when it’s actually just a piece of grass.”
Brilliantly, it can have an entirely different meme-meaning if it was posted by a player who speaks Mandarin. “‘Grass’ in Mandarin sounds like ‘f**k’,” Hkgpeanut says. “I saw it near a chest that you have to parkour your way down to. Guess that guy died a lot to reach it.”
How many of you are wondering why you keep coming across the word 'Grass?' “Grass means 'lol' [for Japanese players],” ETC says.
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For anyone who sees the very similar “Grace” message -- particularly in places where there is not, in fact, a Site of Grace -- there’s a very real possibility you’ve just stumbled across something a Spanish player got a laugh out of.
“I´ve only seen one in-game message that I´m almost certain was posted by a Spanish speaker,” Lofkor says. “In Spanish, ‘Grace’ can also mean ‘funny’ or ‘sense of humour’, so people are making shitposts with dad jokes or old memes followed by a screenshot of ‘Lost Grace Discovered’ (Lost Sense of Humour Discovered). There was this guy that posted a message at the bottom of a ladder saying, ‘Try looking for grace’ -- ‘Intenta buscar gracia’ -- which reads like, ‘Think about why this is funny’. That, I must admit, was pretty funny. Unlike the horde of enemies I was ambushed by because someone put a message under the ladder…”
The beauty of all of this relatively harmless confusion lies in the simple fact that Elden Ring’s messaging system is sufficiently cryptic for overly direct translations to seem genuine.
Most of the players we spoke to have noted that this phenomenon isn’t new to Elden Ring. According to several of the people included in this piece, some more lewd players have been posting messages like “Big chest ahead” in relation to certain bosses since way back when the first Dark Souls launched -- and even back then it was causing people to go looking for extra-large treasure. Lofkor says they would have been much more confused by the number of times they’ve read “however orifice” if not for the fact they’re already acutely aware of “the obsession Dark Souls players have with buttholes.”
Rimavelle, a player from Poland, concurs – and even considers the confusion of older FromSoft games’ messaging systems as something like practice for filtering out the memes in Elden Ring.
“Some of those are old community memes, so I'm familiar with them already and just memorised them,” Rimavelle says. “Sometimes when I'm confused about a message, especially when I've seen multiple of the same ones, I translate them back into English in my head and check if they make sense.”
Because “Edge, lord” translates literally in Polish, Rimavelle spent ages looking at various edges and ledges.
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While Rimavelle’s prior experience with the Souls series gave them greater insight into the kind of jokes the community might be telling, even they struggled with some of the more esoteric phrases. Because “Edge, lord” translates literally in Polish, they spent ages looking at various edges and ledges in the hopes of uncovering some kind of secret.
“Like an idiot,” Rimavelle says. “I figured it was yet another meme when I saw a few of them in a row, and translating them in my head made it finally make sense. Weirdly enough, I didn't see much of the ‘Fort, night’ ones.”
It’s amazing to consider how a messaging system as limited in scope as Elden Ring’s has fostered so much mayhem. People are accidentally playing this game in unusual ways because they’ve been tricked into thinking a Fortnite meme has some kind of deep, hidden significance. It’s an effect that could likely only ever be accomplished in games as lonely, strange, and cryptic as FromSoftware’s creations.
The further question, then, is whether or not this confusion is actually good for the game. While the majority of the people we spoke to appreciate that it’s all in jest, some players online have been quick to label the jokesters of The Lands Between as “trolls” or “griefers.” This is generally more applicable to Tarnished who post messages like “Try jumping” in front of a cliff, as opposed to anyone whose memes are being lost in translation, but it’s still a point worth paying attention to.
“To be honest, FromSoftware should allow players to set a flag on messages like the ones we have on subreddits,” says Erikviking98. “Users could mark messages as jokes, gameplay tips, secrets, spoilers, and so on.”
While this poses an interesting solution, it also invites new problems. There is a genuine divide among players when it comes to FromSoft’s famed messaging systems. People like Erikviking98 might want more transparency when it comes to the nature of individual messages, but Lofkor reckons they’re “pretty impressive given how restrictive the system is.” There’s no clear-cut answer here, which is arguably what the notoriously quiet devs at FromSoft want. Let’s be real -- it would be pretty funny to watch some random guy voluntarily roll off a massive cliff in a game you spent several years of your life working on.
Speaking of which, the idea of FromSoft allowing their extremely serious games to feature cheap tricks and fully-fledged toilet humour is fascinating. What’s the game here? The world lies in ruin, as power-hungry demigods toil over meaningless titles while the weak indiscriminately war with one another like feral animals. Then some lad walks up to a face-down skeleton and writes, “Time for pickle” with a crusty old finger.
It’s ridiculous, but then again, so are most of these games. The conscious juxtaposition of how grave these worlds are with how moronically their inhabitants (read: us) often behave allows experiences like Elden Ring to revel in what is arguably video games’ best attempt at absurdism.
Or maybe it’s just a load of devs giggling whenever someone combines a couple of monosyllabic words to say something really crude. After all, when quizzed about what they did because of these messages, Bretwulfo was plain with their answer:
“Mostly throw myself into holes, haha.”
Cian Maher is a freelance journalist. You can follow him on Twitter.
Best English to Dutch dictionary - WHBF - OurQuadCities.com - Dictionary
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Best English to Dutch dictionary WHBF - OurQuadCities.comSaturday, March 26, 2022
Ukrainian couple helps St. Jude translate medical records - WKRN News 2 - Translation
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Ukrainian couple helps St. Jude translate medical records WKRN News 2Friday, March 25, 2022
Lars Voorberger's Dictionary Explains - Socialpost - Dictionary
DrComedy duo Badesalz, Hesselbachs, Heinz Schenk im Blauen Bock or Bodo Bach and Martin Schneider: Most people in Germany have heard Hessian before – “Media Hessian”. At least that’s what linguist Lars Voorberger calls his new book Hessch. From chatter and snooping.”
The language is not so simple, because Hessian is not only Hessian. According to the linguist, anyone navigating this linguistic landscape is in “the most complex dialect region on German soil”.
Äppler and “ahle Worscht”
According to Vorberger, it would have taken thousands of books to list all the burlap forms of the word. So he chose single examples such as “ppler”, “ahle Worscht” and “Chatten” as Ur-Hesse.
In short, using some sort of dictionary, he explains why it’s called “At Grandma’s” and not “At Grandma’s”, why the Frankfurt Folk Festival is called “Dippemess” and that the music is not played with manual cheese, but that “a beautiful description of the physical consequences of consuming onions”.
“At the dialect level, we distinguish four main regions: Northern, Eastern, Central and Southern Hessian,” wrote Furberger. Dialect areas extend beyond the federal state borders. “But not only are there many different dialects in the federal state of Hesse, the dialects used there are also very diverse.” In any other region of Germany there wouldn’t be so many dialect areas in such a small area.
Rude words don’t sound bad
“Dabbes”, “Hannebambel”, “Labbeduddel”: In the Vorberger dictionary, you learn that Hessian swear words don’t sound so bad. This is also related to the fact that there is not always a clear translation into the standard language. He explains why environmental activist Greta Thunberg’s first name sounds more like Crete, that Hessian does not have the genetic condition, that Goethe may have spoken Hessian and that dialects are “ear-friendly”.
Rumors: Cheese “music” in the hand does not come from machines
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Photo: Wong Bergman
However, languages and dialects are dynamic — and the fact that so many people no longer speak the old dialects doesn’t mean they will die, according to the linguist. Instead, it will change, evolve, and integrate into new forms of regional discourse.
“Total coffee aficionado. Travel buff. Music ninja. Bacon nerd. Beeraholic.”
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