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Am I selfish? How blame can hurt women’s mental health San Luis Obispo TribuneTuesday, August 22, 2023
Dictionary for our times - The Express Tribune - Dictionary
We need a new dictionary for our times, as words that meant something for so long are no longer able to convey what they actually mean in our context. It would be nice to consult something that is more in touch with our present. Words like sorrow, or ashamed no longer represent a sense of loss or regret. Instead, they are just words with no real meaning for us.
As the incidents of hate crimes against minorities continue in the country with full force, we should either say what we mean, or mean what we say. What we actually feel is not a deep sense of loss, but a feeling of inconvenience that we have to now once again talk about something that we wish remained under the radar. Whether it is lynching at a factory in Sialkot or burning of churches in Faisalabad, maybe we should use words that convey our actual sense of apathy or our desire for the news cycle to move forward quickly. We could use words like unperturbed, or if we want to be extra polite, we could say these events do not concern us.
Instead, we issue bombastic statements which give a sense of purpose that is simply not there. Our statements are rinsed and recycled from the most recent episode that was not too long ago. When the leadership of the country say that they are ashamed, or sorry, or vow to never let this happen again, they actually do not mean what they say. Neither does the public believe that it is our collective failure, our own views towards others and our boundless intolerance that is responsible for the evil we see around us. We are not particularly good at taking polls or getting the pulse of the nation, but it would surprise no one if we find plenty of apologists who would dismiss these actions as a consequence of our passion or inevitable reaction of those who care so much about their values. We are told that there is always a good reason for these things. People are upset because their core values were disrespected, and they felt that the system does not prosecute those who hurt their sentiments. We are always able to find a justification for evil. We must also not forget that it is only a fraction of the events that make it to the news. What becomes news is typically the scale of the event, or the brutality of the episode. If neither are present, it is unlikely to be news. The bar for what counts as news is high these days. There is stiff competition from palatial intrigue, new tweet and inanity of all kind — so routine harassment, persecution and injustice against minorities does not quite cut it.
A dictionary for our times should also include words that no longer require any detailed meaning or explanation. Conspiracy is anything that does not work out well for us. You could up the ante by putting the word foreign in front of it. Patriotism is more like a certificate with a short expiry date. That expiry date is also not fixed and can be altered on a whim. That transient certificate (or lack thereof) can make or break a career, or determine whether you are able to walk free or be behind bars.
Then there is the most important word in the dictionary — one that reflects the current state of our values and captures why the cycles of hate and evil repeat at such short notice. That word is complicit. It applies to most of us.
Published in The Express Tribune, August 22nd, 2023.
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Monday, August 21, 2023
More Spanish-speaking families seeking assistance - KOAA News 5 - Translation
COLORADO SPRINGS — Crossfire Ministries operates a thrift store and food pantry in Colorado Springs and says they've seen an increase in Spanish-speaking families asking for assistance.
"We have a lot of families who come in and they just don't speak any English. And we do not always have an interpreter on board during a shift. It is a desperate need for us to be able to serve these families correctly," said Volunteer Coordinator Amy Dubar.
The nonprofit says that they've been struggling to help translate for the people coming in and that translation apps have been ineffective for them.
"We've also noticed that technology, the translation technology, does not work well with these families. One, it is not personal at all, so there's no personal connection there as well, but there is also some illiteracy issues, where they cannot read, 'talk to text' programs that translate, continued Dubar.
They're asking bilingual volunteers in the community to help them with translating. You can help by emailing Crossfire Ministries at volunteer@crossfireministries.org.
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EALA objects to $5m budget for translation services| The New Times - New Times Publication - Translation
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EALA objects to $5m budget for translation services| The New Times New Times PublicationNavigating linguistical currents: The word that broke the Dictionary ... - The Dickinson Press - Dictionary
Hey there, readers of the Verbal Versatility Press! Buckle up, because today we're taking a linguistic roller coaster ride that'll make your thesaurus spin faster than a DJ's turntable. Our tale involves a head-spinning phone call from a subscriber who read us the riot act, politely albeit harshly, on our usage of a specific word in a headline.
What caused their linguistic anger, you ask? Well, let's just say they weren't too keen on the "I" word — you know the one… inclusivity.
Picture this. The sun is shining, birds are chirping and Dickinson Public School decides to jazz up its expansion and renovation plans for the new High School to be in tune with the ever-sensible Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). We even put out an article that elegantly explained the details of their endeavor — a bond and plan that we at The Press support and stand behind, but that’s next week’s column.
But ah, the word that 'shall not be used' garnered the ire of said subscriber. They actually touted the article as well-written and informative, but the Sauron of evils was in the headline. You know, that thing that everyone reads at the top of the story without ever reading the article most of the time. Well, this headline drew their wrath because it dared to mention the dreaded "I" word.
Inclusivity, dear readers, that seemingly innocuous term, has apparently been snatched by the "far-left" and taken on a life of its own, like a rebellious teenager refusing to follow curfew. Our caller insisted that the word had lost its way, becoming tangled in the barbed wire of gender, race and sexuality of the progressive movement. To them, it was like using "rad" to describe an amazing skateboard trick, when "rad" is actually short for "radical" — they were convinced it was a gnarly and twisted mistake…or the spawn of “liberal” media.
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Now, let’s pause to ruminate on this. I’ll make the coffee, and be right back.
It's a peculiar quirk of human nature to attach new meanings to familiar words. Just because some folks decided in the '90s that "bad" could mean "good," doesn't mean we're gonna break out the air horns and send out an all-points-bulletin to our newsroom demanding we stop using the original "bad" in our stories, right?
Imagine a newspaper article with a headline that reads, "City Commission enacts Bad policy," followed by a story about some really cool thing they did that was cognizant of taxpayer dollars and was a clear benefit to the community. Let's just say it'd be a total flop with that headline, not to mention that I’m sure commissioners would be reaching out about the headline too.
But hey, words are slippery creatures. They're like jellyfish at a beach party — stingy if you're not careful, yet pretty awesome when you embrace their true essence. You see, words come with baggage but, it’s all about context. If we replaced every word, every time it got co-opted by politics, we’d have newspapers that read like Haiku poetry.
“Handcuffed, silent man,
Drugs found, freedom slips away,
Choices led astray.”
I thought long and hard about even addressing this issue to be honest. I mean, we get angry phone calls all the time about all sorts of issues, and believe it or not I don’t write about them. But here I felt it important to take a moment to marvel at the current state of affairs in the good ol' U.S. of A.
Everything, from granola bars and NASA to beer and pillows has somehow become an arena for political sparring. Can I even use the word “sparring,” or is that ableist nowadays? I digress.
Let's toast to the power of words — their history, their evolution and their remarkable ability to keep us all on our toes. Inclusivity, dear readers, isn't just about fitting all the cool kids into the same clubhouse. It’s also about letting words be words, embracing their original meanings while acknowledging their quirky, modern twists. After all, language isn't just a tool; it's the epicenter of human connection, even when it feels like a linguistic minefield at times.
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So, as I sip my coffee and savor the strange beauty of it all, let's remember that inclusivity in language is just as important as in society itself. And if the Word Police come knocking at our headlines, ready to read us our etymological rights, we'll just smile, hand them a dictionary and say, "Chill bruh, you doin’ too much fam, like no cap.”
Words change, but we're keeping it old-school, newspaper cool, here at The Dickinson Press. Why? Cause it's bad… but in a good way.
Editor's Note: On a more serious note, we do take complaints into consideration on all input. Readers are of immense value to us and your opinions are needed. But in the old adage, “You’ll probably win more bees with honey.” Thank you Dickinson for the ear and patience with us here at The Dickinson Press.
James B. Miller, Jr. is the Editor of The Dickinson Press in Dickinson, North Dakota. He strives to bring community-driven, professional and hyper-local focused news coverage of southwest North Dakota.
From flood info to apartment appliance guides, Vermont Language Justice Project aims to translate it all - VTDigger - Translation
Abigail Carroll is a reporter with Community News Service, part of the University of Vermont’s Reporting & Documentary Storytelling program.
The Vermont Language Justice Project began from a crisis.
With the Covid-19 pandemic in March 2020 came a rush of guidance on masks, testing, vaccines and social distancing. But even with all the messages from the CDC and local communities, there was a communication issue.
“It felt like every other day there was updated guidance and different parameters, and different rules were not being relayed in multiple languages,” said Ray Coffey, director of community services for Winooski. “So our multilingual community members were not always getting this really, frankly, life-saving critical information at the same rate that English-speaking residents were.”
Alison Segar, a former social worker in Burlington, thought the same. From this frustration came an idea to organize the writing, recording and release of translated Covid safety information on YouTube. For two years, Segar and a team of translators worked to make all that evolving, critical information available in over a dozen languages to Vermont’s non-English speaking population. They called themselves the Vermont Language Justice Project.
The effort soon involved collaborations with social services organizations and government officials, like Coffey in Winooski, to provide insight from different areas of Vermont throughout the height of the pandemic. By June 2020, the group had received funding from the Vermont Department of Health to pay their translators.
As Covid guidelines were being released with less regularity, and with further donations from the public, the group transitioned to offering general information for immigrants and refugees adjusting to life in Vermont.
But now, with homes and businesses wrecked from flooding across the state, the group has refocused its efforts back to crisis information: for example, how to recognize and avoid bodies of water now polluted with nasties like cyanobacteria.
While walking along one of Burlington’s beaches, Segar noticed that signs about its closure due to blue-green algae were only in English. “Unless you can speak English,” she said, “you’re not going to know that you can’t go swimming.”
After the recent flooding, the project released videos about the risks of contaminated drinking water, floodwater making garden foods inedible, where to get help with flooded buildings and more.
Vermont Language Justice Project meets with partners and community representatives from across the state every two weeks to discuss plans for future videos and campaigns.
Their partners include the Champlain Housing Trust and housing agencies from Burlington and Winooski. Katherine Decarreau has been working as executive director of the Winooski Housing Authority for four years and considers Vermont Language Justice Project crucial in helping immigrants and refugees acclimate to life in the states.
Some immigrants who arrive in Vermont come from impoverished living conditions, Decarreau said, where they’ve had little experience with some types of appliances. Especially, Decarreau said, those coming from refugee camps. The Winooski Housing Authority paid the group of translators to release videos having to do with general house care for that reason.
Not all refugees come from the same living situation. “A lot of the younger people were born in refugee camps, but a lot of the parents ended up there having fled war and starvation and horrors,” said Segar. “For some people, the refugee camp was a really peaceful place to be after what they had to endure, and for some people, refugee camps were horrendous places full of people desperate to leave, or people in poverty. So I don’t think you can paint (all) refugee camps with the same brush.”
The Vermont Language Justice Project offers a wide range of video topics with refugees in mind. Due to the intricacies of language, translations aren’t always perfect. “Sometimes you need to explain a whole concept because the concept doesn’t exist in the (original) language,” Decarreau said. “In the long run, language is easy, culture is hard.”
Some languages have no written aspect to them, such as the Somali language Maay Maay. That’s why the group chose an audio format for delivering its translated materials.
Vermont Language Justice Project’s planned future uploads cover topics such as refilling prescriptions, domestic violence and hearing aids. Segar had planned to write and release a video on citizens’ rights in police encounters in July, before the floods changed the group’s plans. To make their translations even more accessible, Segar plans on developing an app.
As a former social worker, Segar is familiar with the needs of new Americans — and because she immigrated to the states too, from the United Kingdom. She has a close relationship with the refugee community in particular.
“A long time ago, in the early 2000s, my ex and our children took in one of the first Somali Bantu families of refugees who came to Vermont … Twenty years later, I still consider them my family. So when all this information was coming out about Covid … I was thinking, ‘How is my beloved family going to know what the heck is happening?’”
The group’s videos are translated into Spanish, Nepali, Somali, French, Kirundi, Maay Maay, Burmese, Ukrainian, Pashto, Dari, Mandarin, Vietnamese, Swahili, Tigrinya, English, Arabic and American Sign Language. Its YouTube channel has over 500 subscribers who watch from all over the world: After the U.S., most are from Saudi Arabia, Nepal, Mexico, Costa Rica, Britain, Taiwan, Colombia, Spain, Egypt, Nicaragua, Malaysia and Bosnia.
Gmail for Android and iOS can now translate emails [U] - 9to5Google - Translation
Google is finally adding a native translate capability to Gmail for Android and iOS after long supporting it on the web client.
Update 8/21: Gmail’s translate feature is rolling out via a server-side update. We’re seeing it with version 2023.07.23.x. It’s not yet widely available, but one way to check is by tapping the second overflow menu in the message body for “Translate.”
That option brings up a banner with the settings gear letting you select something other than “Detect language.”
Original 8/8: Before the message body, Gmail will show a “Translate to” banner. Tapping updates what appears below with the ability to “Show original” again and “Automatically translate” a specific language going forward.
Press the settings gear to pick another output language, with over 100 supported. This prompt appears when the contents of an email doesn’t match your “Gmail display language,” which is the first dropdown menu in web app settings.
You can manually translate a language by going into the three-dot overflow menu in the top-right corner if an email was not recognized. The feature can also be disabled for a specific language by clicking ‘x’ on the banner and then “Don’t translate [language] again.”
Translations in Gmail for Android are rolling out from today onwards, while it will come to iOS in the coming weeks. This is a much-needed integration as users previously had to open an email on their computer, or taking a screenshot on mobile and send it to Google Lens or Translate.
- Available to all Google Workspace customers and users with personal Google Accounts
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