In need of a translator

Every day there is at least one instance when I am in need of a translator. Such moments often occur while reading the headlines or when I sit in church, when I overhear a conversation in a foreign language (be it sports or Spanish) or walk in a forest.

I was reminded of this during my recent trip to the emergency room. We have all watched enough medical shows to know that "Stat!" means immediately, but I’m sorry to report I never heard that while there. If the morphine hadn't kicked in, I might have been able to figure out that a "Code Red!" announced over the loudspeaker was a fire drill, but I had to ask the x-ray technician. I chatted with the doctors about the words they kept using to describe my wound and their actions and wish I could remember some examples, but they sounded rather military and out of context as I lay on the bed.

People in unfamiliar settings, such as a new job or family gathering, need translators. Rookies are lucky if there is a glossary to help them with the industrial terms and acronyms that over time will become second nature to them and used repeatedly in their own conversations. Outsiders entering a close-knit group are excluded from the shorthand developed over the years by the inner circle. It takes the newbies a long time to know why everyone laughs when Uncle Biff is mentioned or the mood shifts if someone refers to Grandma Hilda.

 

How does one better describe a ‘pinch of salt’ to the cooking-challenged or regional jargon like ‘The Drive’ or soda vs. cola vs. pop to transplants? The just resolved issue at Wheaton College about the professor whose personal post on her Facebook page about Christians and Muslims worshiping the same God highlighted some generational, institutional and religious differences that needed a translator.  

As much as I love nature, on any given walk I could use a guide to translate what I am seeing, hearing or feeling. What is that bird saying? Whose scat is that on the tree trunk? My six years of Latin were beneficial in studying English but when our French teacher walked in the first day and only spoke French, I struggled. It’s frustrating on the el or in the lunchroom to not be able to understand snippets I overhear being conducted in other tongues. Let's just skip over computer and social media language, legalese or the fact that I need a young person to explain to me who 95% of the people in People are.

I guess part of this line of thinking leads me to realize that needing a translator in so many situations makes us all immigrants in the various worlds we traverse on a daily basis. Somehow I don’t think the close-the-border thinkers would appreciate the irony of that.

 

Marilyn