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Translating the Untranslatable

Last week, Morning Edition on NPR ran a story on the book In Other Words: A Language Lover's Guide to the Most Intriguing Words Around the World. The idea is to introduce readers to words from specific cultures which those outside that culture don't have their own single word for. For example:

An African word, "ilunga": "This word from the Tshiluba language of the Republic of Congo has topped a list drawn up with the help of one thousand translators as the most untranslatable word in the world. It describes a person who is ready to forgive any transgression a first time and then to tolerate it for a second time, but never for a third time."

A German word, "korinthenkacker": "A "raisin pooper" -- that is, someone so taken up with life's trivial detail that they spend all day crapping raisins. You can spot these types a mile off -- it's that irritating pen pusher or filing fanatic whose favorite job is tidying up the stationery cupboard."

We talked in class tonight about ways to convince readers to accept our language, to step into our cultural shoes as a rhetorical device. We were then given 30 minutes to take a word, either one from the list provided or one we know of, and write an essay (if you're having a writer's block, it's a good exercise). I chose a French word from the list, "esprit de l'escalier": "A witty remark that occurs to you too late, literally on the way down the stairs. The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations defines "esprit de l'escalier" as '[a]n untranslatable phrase, the meaning of which is that one only thinks on one's way downstairs of the smart retort one might have made in the drawing room.'"

I can't remember if I've written about this incident on the blog--I think I have--but I know I didn't write about it from this perspective. So here are the results. This is the draft I came up with, which means I had only 30 minutes, so it needs a lot of work, but sometimes it's good for writers to display the seed instead of the fruit; if nothing else, it keeps you humble. So, esprit de l'escalier:

Call my momma a name right now and I could, at least potentially, kick your ass. In junior high, though, you could have called her a hound dog, and as much as I might have wished it were true, there was no way I could do anything about it. I was at the mercy of the hormone gods, and I was last in line. Since I wasn’t able to match you whisker for whisker or inch for inch, I resorted to the pen. Though you knew how to use aerosol deodorant and I didn’t, I knew how to use words, and I could have used them to wipe out your reputation. That made me feel grown-up.

A lot has changed since then. In the intervening two decades, I’ve grown beards and learned how aerosol works, I’ve physically intimidated a few people, and I’ve even had a girlfriend or two based solely on physical attraction. But my interest in that stuff came and went like the sock tie. What has held my interest is the power of words, the real power of words to build and destroy, to methodically and rationally pierce the heart. I have blossomed into a writer.

The part of the process of writing that I enjoy the most is seeing essayistically: Having trained myself to be always aware of my surroundings, I notice, or, more accurately, make inventory of a lot more than I used to: conversations on the bus, facial expressions in the periphery, nano-second moments of beauty in the mundane, teenage truckbed gangs in Walgreens parking lots.

I saw one a few months ago when I pulled in to drop off some film at the one-hour photo lab. On the way into the store, I took note of the rusted-out wheel wells, the frays on the shoulders of the now-sleeveless flannel shirts, how deliciously brutish was the admixtured smell of cologne and hair gel, the way the girls’ breasts seemed to be the center of gravity for the thirteen and fourteen year old boys, who had full beards, at least on sections of their faces. “What a great cultural artifact, a great sketch to use in an essay some day,” I thought to myself. As I stood in line to drop off my photos, I considered a newspaper piece I might write to open people’s eyes not to the degradation of our city, but to the beauty to be found if only we’d take time to really think.

On the way back out to my car, one of the kids in the truckbed said, “Hey . . .”—speaking, I realized, to me—“Hey, how’s it goin’, Elvis?” Instantly, I felt insecure, embarrassed, intimidated—in short, back in 8th grade. And as in 8th grade, I had only one option: Go home and write about it, which I decided at that moment, that moment that I opened my door and started my car, completely paralyzed, to do. Before I got home, however, I returned, an hour later, to pick up my photos. Over the course of that hour, I thought about that kid, wondered why it bothered me so much, and began thinking of things I could have said back to him.

I don’t look that much like Elvis, really. I had just gotten a short hair-cut, so I suppose there was enough of a similarity to see some truth in there, which seems to be true of any form of comedy. But that’s not what got me. What got me is that, fundamentally, a cut-down, broken down into its fundamental mechanics, operates on a junior high level. There’s no real intellect required, no real wit at work, certainly not in the Elvis example. All that’s left is the brute fact that I WAS BEING RIDICULED ON THE BASIS OF APPEARANCE. Which is a completely irrational mode of communication, which requires nothing more than either a sizable set of balls or a hair or two on your chest, which is exactly what I didn’t have in 8th grade, which is why, 20 years and bigger balls and a hairy chest later, I was pained that I still couldn’t respond. But, like a writer with a good play on words, the gods love reversal, and I found the teenage truckbed gang still in the parking lot when I returned. Which is why--finally able to fight hormone with hormone; when I passed the kid and he asked why I was back, if I’d forgotten to buy some blue suede shoes; when I told him that I had to go ask my parole officer if it were okay to beat the shit out of him as long as I didn’t upset his mom--I didn’t care that I was an adult—sometimes it just feels good to verbally kick some ass.

Posted by ghetto monk at January 24, 2005 10:41 PM | TrackBack