Random thoughts: Women are Moms in power relationships

Today a student told me I “talk like a Mom”. It was a strange thing to hear from someone who is only three years younger than me. Besides, “my being a mom” experience is limited, so far, to looking after a cat.

But on the second thought, there was something to the comment. Perhaps I do sound a bit patronizing (or should I say ‘matronizing’?) when I chastise my students for not doing their homework. Or was it the example I gave for the word ‘permissible’ by using its negative form – ‘not permissible’? With all the seriousness, though, I really wonder what it is in power relationships that makes women appear so Mom-like when they are in charge.

Oxford Dictionary’s Word of the Year: Unfriend [?!]

News that Oxford dictionary named “Unfriend” the word of 2009 came to my attention via @mashable, arguably the best social media guide on the web. The article on their website mentions a recent history of social media buzz words making it to the top of authoritative dictionary selections. But are these choices warrantied, or do they merely represent an attempt to shake off the dust from thick volumes that seem to be desperately groping for attention in the fast-paced age of Twitter and Facebook?

Revisiting the Soviet war in Afghanistan: Painful pictures

In doing research on the Soviet war in Afghanistan for a project, I came across this photo of a memorial in Donetsk (eastern Ukraine). It affected me deeply.

The ghostly figure of a dead young soldier, caught as if at the moment a bullet rips through his chest and elevated above the ground in this petrified version of Ascension, is so tragic that it’s painful to look at it. It portrays a meaningless death in a meaningless war. Here you can sense coldness, loneliness and bareness of existence – an impression further intensified by the autumn trees and the gray-white sky in the background.

The Soviet war in Afghanistan should never have happened. Its outcome benefited no one. The Soviet Union collapsed; Afghanistan is still trying to shake off the Taliban that CIA armed and trained against the attempted Marxist takeover in that country; and the U.S. finds itself in a quagmire of an elusive “war on terror” – a monster child of a policy that seemed such a success back in 1991.

Приключения в Нью-Йорке: Гадалка

Белые буквы на черной вывеске: PSYCHIC. Узкий вход в темный подъезд. Синий ковер с изображением луны, солнца и звезд поднимается на второй этаж. Здесь, в однокомнатной квартире, живет гадалка Анна. У нее девочка десяти лет и радиотелефон. Анна не говорит по-русски, хотя живет на Брайтон Бич.

Тусклая желтая лампочка освещает крохотную прихожую маленькой квартиры. Именно здесь клиенты Анны слышат о своем прошлом и узнают о будущем. Огромная Библия раскрыта на высокой подставке. Вместо закладки – внушительного размера деревянное распятие.

«How can I help you»? – спрашивает смуглая гадалка.

«Я бы хотела узнать о будущем», – отвечаю я после секундного замешательства.

Анна предлагает мне на выбор гадание по ладони, таро, хрустальный шар… Красочный прайс-лист на двух языках висит на стене над низким столиком, за который она меня усадила. По сравнению с похожими услугами в Манхэттене, Анна берет по-божески. Вдохновленная фильмами о цыганах, я выбираю относительно дорогое удовольствие – хрустальный шар. Классика, как-никак.

Шар, который Анна кладет на стол, не хрустальный. Это ком сделанной под стекло пластмассы.

Opt-out, or How not to treat your business partners

Today I received an email from the alumni coordinator at my undergraduate university asking for assistance with prospective students. The task would be simple: to reply to such students’ inquiries and share with them my experience at the university. While it is something I would normally be delighted to do, the phrasing of the request got me puzzled.

Ghostwriters and Literary Slaves: Difficulties of cross-cultural translation

Ghostwriting is a controversial trade across borders, though the suspicion it used to raise is now a yesterday in many countries. Not so in Russia; at least, that’s the impression I got when I tried to find a Russian equivalent of what I proudly call my profession.

In Russian, the term “ghostwriter” is translated as – no offense intended – “literary slave” (литературный негр).

That’s the translation you’ll get if you check with one of the most reputable English-to-Russian dictionaries, multitran.ru. The term is also registered in the Russian version of Wikipedia. The latter explains that “literary slave” comes into Russian from the French “nègre littéraire” and often refers to a person “who writes books, articles, autobiographies, etc., instead of another, more famous person”.