Musings from an overworked translator

TGIF: Verb (That’s What’s Happenin’) April 30, 2009

It’s Friday. Time for another TGIF video. I’m continuing the Schoolhouse Rock grammar videos and am really enjoying watching them again. This video first aired in 1974. In the video a young man goes to the movies to see Verb, the superhero. He learns all about verbs and what they can do. Enjoy! (Verb!)

TGIF: A Noun is a Person, Place or Thing April 24, 2009

Continuing the Schoolhouse Rock Grammar Rock videos, here is “A Noun is a Person, Place or Thing.” Wow, these are really taking me back. I remember watching this on TV like it was yesterday (although you can tell this was made in the 1970s from the color scheme)! Have a great weekend, everyone!

TGIF: Conjunction Junction April 17, 2009

Thanks to the ALTA Blog for reminding me about one of my favorite influences from my childhood, Schoolhouse Rock. They wrote about interjections in a blog post called Interjection Junction a few days ago. It made me smile and then I shared some Schoolhouse Rock videos with my nieces when I babysat them on Wednesday.

In case any of you were wondering about my path to becoming a translator, Schoolhouse Rock played a huge role in making me the grammarian I am today. Airing during Saturday morning cartoons from 1973 to 1985, Schoolhouse Rock taught my generation all about American history, grammar, and multiplication. Schoolhouse Rock aired 41 short segments featuring catchy tunes, and most of my generation passed our U.S. History tests by singing the Preamble of the Constitution to ourselves. I know because I looked around the room and almost fell out of my chair laughing when I saw everyone silently singing to themselves. To this day I can still sing “Conjunction Junction,” “Lolly, Lolly, Lolly, Get Your Adverbs here,” “The Shot Heard Round the World,” “Mother Necessity,” and the classic “I’m Just a Bill” – and it was 25 years ago!

Schoolhouse Rock was conceived in 1971 when, according to the History of Schoolhouse Rock, “David McCall, chairman of big-time New York ad agency McCaffrey & McCall, noticed that his son could sing every Beatles and Stones lyric ever recorded but couldn’t handle simple multiplication tables. His solution was simple: Link math with contemporary music and the kids will breeze through school on a song.” And the rest is history. I’ll be posting some of my favorite Grammar Rock clips over the next few weeks. This one is my all-time favorite, Conjunction Junction. I hope you enjoy them!

TGIF: Happy Easter from the Easter B April 10, 2009

There won’t be a translation video today. I’m in Cincinnati for a friend’s birthday. Instead, I hope you click on the following link and enjoy this little Easter video. Happy Easter, everyone!

TGIF: The thawing of the Queen April 3, 2009

I wasn’t going to put up a video today, but this just cracks me up. Queen Elizabeth II has always been quite prim and proper, but she has really been letting her hair down in the past few days. It wouldn’t surprise me if next we’ll hear she hosted a kegger for the G20 leaders.

First, she actually puts her arm around First Lady Michelle Obama:

And then she expresses irritation at the behavior of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi:

It’s like aliens have invaded her body 🙂

TGIF: Everything’s amazing but nobody’s happy March 27, 2009

It’s amazing how quickly the week slips away. I was busy doing nothing for the first half and got slammed with work again towards the end of the week. I honestly had wanted to write more than one proper post this week. I’m amazed it’s already Friday. I will be working again over the weekend, so I suppose I shouldn’t truly be celebrating the fact that it’s Friday…

But it *is* Friday and that means it’s time for another video. This one made me really laugh. It’s not at all language-related, but I am confident we can all relate. Technology has been improving at an amazingly fast rate. I remember having a “party line” as a kid. No, it wasn’t one of those 1-900 chat line numbers. We shared a phone line with the neighbor across the street. That meant we had to lift the receiver to see if someone was on there and wait until they were done to make our call. If you had an emergency and needed to call home and your neighbor was on the line you had to have the operator break into the call. Yes, that was back in the day when they still employed people to help you make phone calls. All this on a rotary phone, so I particularly enjoyed his intro. In fact, my nieces were fascinated by my parents’ rotary phone when they were really young. They’ve outgrown it now – just like we have. I hope you enjoy this clip!

Click on it twice to pull it up on Youtube.

Bonus TGIF: Spielberg interview (TV Total) – oops! Lucas March 20, 2009

Fidusinterpres, a German and English to Portuguese translator who lives about a half hour outside of Bonn, just shared the best video clip on his blog, and I had to share it with you all. N24 needs to hire an interpreter who has actually seen Star Wars. Unbelievable! The interpreter translated the famous phrase “May the force be with you” (Möge die Macht mit dir sein) as “Am vierten Mai sind wir bei Ihnen” (May the 4th be with you – or more precisely We’ll be with you on the 4th). Unbelievable! This may only be funny for German speakers, but give it a try.

I love Stefan Raab. His hit show TV Total premiered while I still lived in Germany, and I always enjoyed watching it. I think he’s just hilarious. He plays with the German language really well. I have a copy of his hit single “Maschendrahtzaun” in my CD case. It was based on a reality TV court show in which the plaintiff had a very strong East German accent. The poor woman was completely overwhelmed with the PR and fans outside her house at the time, but the song was a huge hit.

TGIF: My Internet’s Gone Down March 19, 2009

I have a friend coming to visit tomorrow, so I’ll be busy cleaning when I’m not frantically translating my massive survey. I thought I’d post the Friday video a little early tonight so I don’t forget.

This is a cute video about the horror we all fear: losing our Internet connection. I know I for one go into serious withdrawal when my Internet has gone down. Enjoy!

TGIF: Beauty is nothing without brains March 13, 2009

Here’s a bonus TGIF video to brighten your day. It isn’t language-related, but since most translators I know love books I figure this is related enough. It made me giggle, and that’s really all that matters, right? Enjoy!