Musings from an overworked translator

The value of used book sales June 1, 2009

Every year Case Western Reserve University holds a massive book sale over four days in its gymnasium. The gymnasium is crammed with books and boxes – and people looking for bargains. People from the Cleveland area clean off their book shelves and empty their attics all year to make the annual book sale, sponsored by the Association for Continuing Education at Case Western Reserve University, a huge event. This year’s 63rd Annual Book Sale features 60,000-80,000 books and several rare and autographed editions. All hours are free and open to the public except for a $20 presale admission between 9 a.m. and noon on the opening day. Sale hours are noon to 6 p.m. on Saturday, Sunday and Monday (reduced price day), and 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Tuesday, ($5 box day).

In the past I have made a day of it and had lunch afterwards at a restaurant in Cleveland’s Little Italy district, which is just around the corner from Case Western Reserve. I sit in one of the garden patios and leaf through a couple of my finds. This year I went to the Book Sale after a 12-mile training walk for the Breast Cancer 3-Day, so I spent an hour browsing my favorite sections and then hobbled home to hang out with my dog in the backyard and then take a shower.

I look forward to attending the Book Sale every year and have found some real gems. Last year I bought the two-volume set of Ernst’s Wörterbuch der industriellen Technik (fifth edition) in pristine condition for $45 (and gave the English-German volume as a gift to one of my colleagues) in addition to lots of fun and interesting books like Love in the Time of Cholera, Shadow Divers, and The Fun Book: 102 Ways for Girls to Have Some. This year my finds include Neuder/Ullrich’s Dictionary of Radiological Engineering for $3, the American College of Cardiology’s ECG-SAP III Electrocardiography Self-Assessment Program for $8 (for a little light reading and term mining – I’ve been translating lots of stent reports lately), Thieme Verlag’s Color Atlas of Physiology for $1, Made in America (An Informal History of the English Language in the United States) by Bill Bryson in hard cover ($1), and lots of paperback mysteries by P.D. James and Robin Cook. The European setting of P.D. James’ The Private Patient inspired a blog post back in March about being stuck between cultures, and I just finished Robin Cook’s Brain for my mystery book discussion tonight. I loved all the medical terminology he uses – and love that I can understand it! I can’t wait to dig in. The books should tide me over through the winter until next year’s Book Sale.

If you have a used book sale (or several) near you I urge you to check them out. You never know when you will find a dictionary that usually sells for $295 on Amazon for $45 – or a book that could radically change the way you look at life.

Scripps National Spelling Bee again May 27, 2009

If you are in the U.S. you might want to watch the Finals of the 2009 Scripps National Spelling Bee tonight (Thursday) at 8 p.m. (Eastern Standard Time). As translators, we are picky about our spelling and writing skills, so I always enjoy watching the kids spell words like autochthonous, Ursprache and – last year’s winning word – guerdon. These kids are impressive, because they always manage to spell words that I have never heard before. As a bonus you can expand your vocabulary.

The bee is open to students who have not turned 16 or passed beyond the eighth grade and who attend schools that are officially enrolled with the Scripps program. The winners of just under 300 local spelling bees qualify to attend the National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C. It can be quite suspenseful and exciting to watch them compete.

The term “spelling bee’ is a bit of a mystery. As the Spelling Bee website explains the origin of the term “spelling bee”:

The word bee, as used in spelling bee, is one of those language puzzles that has never been satisfactorily accounted for. A fairly old and widely-used word, it refers to a community social gathering at which friends and neighbors join together in a single activity (sewing, quilting, barn raising, etc.) usually to help one person or family. The earliest known example in print is a spinning bee, in 1769. Other early occurrences are husking bee (1816), apple bee (1827), and logging bee (1836). Spelling bee is apparently an American term. It first appeared in print in 1875, but it seems certain that the word was used orally for several years before that.

Those who used the word, including most early students of language, assumed that it was the same word as referred to the insect. They thought that this particular meaning had probably been inspired by the obvious similarity between these human gatherings and the industrious, social nature of a beehive. But in recent years scholars have rejected this explanation, suggesting instead that this bee is a completely different word. One possibility is that it comes from the Middle English word bene, which means “a prayer” or “a favor” (and is related to the more familiar word boon). In England, a dialect form of this word, been or bean, referred to “voluntary help given by neighbors toward the accomplishment of a particular task.” (Webster’s Third New International Dictionary). Bee may simply be a shortened form of been, but no one is entirely certain.

References:
A Dictionary of American English. Sir William A. Craigie and James R. Hulbert, eds. University of Chicago Press, 1944.

A Dictionary of Americanisms. Mitford M. Matthews, ed. Univ. of Chicago Press, 1951.

Mencken, H.L. The American Language. New York: Alfred Knopf, 1938 (suppl. I, 1945: suppl. II, 1948).