The Case of the Unemployed Oil Engineer.wmv

Added: Aug 4, 2010

From: dwsolo

Duration: 12:30

The Case of the Unemployed oil engineer was written during my many years translating for the Customs department. (There is of course no connection whatsoever with the BP oil spill of recent months...) The jokes are mainly linguistic and the whole idea that words ("lexical items" as I call them here) could be subject to customs duties is a fantasy, but run with it, just for fun.... The oft repeated reference to the "Mañana scandal" is of course a discussion that is always put off until later, as you might expect... The references to muhandis (= engineer), bilaad (= countries), kalimaat (= words) and mudiir (= director) relate, of course, to Arabic words, which were "imported" into European languages only under the terms of this work of fiction. The reference to the burning of lexical items and the scaring of the sheep upwind is an oblique reference to that day when seized cannabis was offically burned in the open air to the mellow delight of neighbouring campers upwind of the fire.... The "Assistant translator, Dawn Slovnik", who is the apparent owner of the file, is my own alter ego, the surname being the Czech or Slovak word for "Dictionary".... Jeanne, my boss at the time (in the 1990s), read the story and commented: "Very good, muhahis muhandis" - a glorious pun on "mutatis mutandis".... Oh I do miss the punning atmosphere of the Translation Service ;-) I hope you enjoy this somewhat esoteric journey into the mind of a somewhat individualistic, now retired, customs translator....

Channel: Entertainment

Tags: muhandis  bilaad  mañana  manana  customs  lexical  language  puns  short story  narrative  arabic  english  german  smuggling  mutatis mutandis  international  unemployment  translation 

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