The fascinating thing about language
Asterix and the Great Crossing
For almost 40 years pedantic language-lovers have accused Neil Armstrong of committing a crucial grammatical error during his first steps on the Moon.
On tapes of the Moon landings, he appears to drop the ‘a’ from the famous quote, "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind." As ‘man’ and mankind’ are essentially the same thing, critics have pointed out that without the ‘a’, this oft-quoted line makes no sense. Even Mr Armstrong has never made up his mind about whether he got it right. New analysis of the tapes, however, has proved that Mr Armstrong was correct after all.
Computer programmer Peter Shann Ford used audio analysis software to show that the missing ‘a’ was drowned out by transmission static. Using GoldWave, a $45 (£24) audio editing program, this analysis indicates that the word was spoken but not recorded by Mr Armstrong's microphone before being transmitted to the 500 million people glued to their screens around the world in July 1969.
Ford said that Mr Armstrong completed the whole phrase "one small step for a man" too quickly to pick up every syllable he said. But the audio analysis was able to find the signature of the missing word, he said. In a short statement, Mr Armstrong supported the evidence with which he had been presented.
"I have reviewed the data and Peter Ford's analysis of it, and I find the technology interesting and useful," he said. "I also find his conclusion persuasive. Persuasive is the appropriate word."
Mr Armstrong says that he came up with the phrase in the hours between the touchdown of the lunar module and his first steps onto the Moon's surface. Having demonstrated such linguistic prowess, Lingo24 is considering offering Mr Armstrong a place on The Lingo-ist’s editorial team, as we are running out of pithy phrases. ‘Watch this space’…oh dear.
Asterix and the Black Gold
This month’s star prize for linguistic lapse goes to Kazakhstan. In a move that could have come straight from the mouth of Sacha Baron Cohen’s ‘Borat’ character, the oil-rich nation’s central bank is to issue new banknotes despite a spelling error on the notes.
The notes bear Kazakh writing in Cyrillic letters, but the word "bank" is misspelt using an alternative Kazakh form of the letter K.
MPs wrote to President Nursultan Nazarbayev urging him to tell the bank not to circulate the notes. But the National Bank said the 2,000 tenge notes (£8) and the 5,000 notes would be issued in November but would gradually be replaced.
The MPs' letter to the president said: "We urge you to tell the National Bank not to put out the notes with a mistake in the Kazakh language." It said: "The mistake... is not just a spelling problem - it has political undertones."
Language remains an issue of concern in Kazakhstan. Russian, in its Cyrillic script, was encouraged during the Soviet era, but since independence in 1991, the Kazakh language has been seen as a national symbol. Or cymbal, perhaps.
Asterix at the Olympic Games
The Chinese government has launched a new initiative to clamp down on bad English in the run-up to the Beijing Olympics in 2008.
Previous attempts to wipe out Chinglish - the mistranslated phrases often seen on Chinese street signs and product labels - have met with little success.
Ignorance is bliss at Beijing airport where the emergency exits read "No entry on peacetime" and the Beijing Ethnic Minorities Park is the proud bearer of the name "Racist Park".
The Xinhua news agency reported that the city authorities will issue new translation guides by the end of the year. The booklets would be handed out to hotels and shopping centres, on public transport and at tourist attractions.
Chinglish has become a running joke among many foreigners in China, and many amusing websites have been set up listing comical examples of mistranslation.
A road sign on Beijing's Avenue of Eternal Peace warns of a dangerous pavement with the words: "To Take Notice of Safe; The Slippery are Very Crafty". Menus frequently list items such as "Corrugated iron beef", "Government abuse chicken" and "Chop the strange fish".
The mistranslations arise because many Chinese words express concepts obliquely and can be interpreted in multiple ways, making translation a minefield for non-English speakers.
If any lesson can be learned from this, it is that a native speaker translating into his or her native language is always infinitely preferable to a non-native speaker, no matter their qualifications and experience in the acquired language – in this case, English. Of course, this is something that Lingo24 will always ensure, but you probably guessed we were going to say that…
Asterix in Britain
Bill Clinton had MPs and media correspondents scrabbling about for Lingo24’s telephone number at the recent Labour party conference, when his use of an African term led to confused looks on the floor.
"Society is important because of Ubuntu,” the former USA president said, leading political hacks to breathlessly speculate about whether he was referring to one of Vladimir Romanov’s new signings for Hearts or Paulo Nuniti’s latest single.
In fact, the word comes from the Bantu languages spoken in southern Africa and is closely related to a Zulu concept, ‘umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu’, which means that a person is only a person through his or her relationship to others. It describes an African worldview, translating as ‘I am because you are,’ and basically means that individuals need other people to be fulfilled.
Ubuntu has leapt joyfully into political lexicon in recent years through the political changes in South Africa. Some Africans now refer to ‘ubuntu theology’ - where ethical responsibility comes with a shared identity. If someone is thirsty, the ubuntu response is that we are all collectively responsible.
There is a spiritual as well as practical dimension to this - ubuntu reflects the idea that we are part of a long chain of human experience, connecting us to future and previous generations.
President Clinton’s speech, meanwhile, was warmly received by delegates at the conference. He did not, however, mention if the word ‘cigar’ translates into the many Bantu languages in Africa.