On the perils of writing a glossary

So this year I have landed a contract doing a technical writing job, about which I was rather excited.

We are in the home stretch now, as we get ready to print, and I spent three days this week writing the glossary.

I've never really thought about glossary writers before, although I was involved in writing a dictionary once and found it definitely appealed to my OCD tendencies.

But now, after my experience this week, I would like to talk to someone who writes glossaries for a living. I want to ask: how do you stay sane? What OHS policies do you have in place? Can you still spell?

Here's how my three days went.

I was initially pretty excited about the glossary, being quite a lover of lexicography. "An excuse to read dictionary definitions", I thought happily to myself. "And get paid for it!"

I decided I needed a system. I already had the words that needed to be in the glossary. I read a few "how to write a glossary" articles. My sense of excitement increased. It dawned on me that I would need to read numerous definitions of the same word in multiple dictionaries, to make comparisons and then craft my own Plain English summary. "Wacko", I thought. "I usually do that for fun, and people think I'm crazy. Now it's my job!"

I selected the different dictionaries I would use, a variety of online  free dictionaries, dictionaries I subscribe to and the good hardcopy book variety.

And I began. And I loved it!

For the first afternoon.

By the second day, I was having trouble differentiating between nouns and adjectives.

Oh, and you know that thing you get when you've been looking at a word for so long it starts to appear kind of weird, like it must be spelt wrong?

At the end of the second day of glossary writing, Pete seemed to sense it would be good for me to get out of the house. I went to aqua aerobics. It was the most exciting thing I'd ever done. There was  the horizon! Movement! People! Wet water splashing around in a wet fashion! I laughed a lot in that aqua class, much to the concern of my fellow splashers.

Day three. I was beginning to waver. Each time I made a glossary entry, I'd first been checking to see the context in which  it was used in the document - verb or noun, for example. By day three I was getting a lot better at re-writing sections of the book using plainer English, to avoid having to make a new entry in the glossary.

I started to be  personally offended when one of the dictionaries -- the one I'd decided was my favourite -- let me down. (Yes, that's right, it was letting me down. After we'd been through so much together.)

I took a break at noon to go to a refugee rights  rally. Someone handed me a letter from a detained Tamil man, asking me if I would read it to the gathered crowd.

I looked down at the bit of paper. It had words on it. So many words. They didn't, it didn't .... I couldn't... "No", I said. "I'm sorry. I feel a bit sick. Can someone else do it? It's not even alphabetical order."

After the rally I came home to crank through another letter.  I was up to "m" when I'd gone to the rally. By "p", this is how it looked:

rebate

a discount or amount of money that is returned or given back after something has been paid for. For example, if you have to buy a uniform for work, you might get some of the money you spent back as a tax rebate

recognition

this word must die

redundancy

this word can go to hell

redundant

yeah right

referee

soccer? ole ole ole?

I remembered a book I read a while back called Reading the OED, about a man who - yes, that's right. The whole thing. How did you guess? I remembered finding it entertaining reading  about what it did to his health and sanity.

When Pete got home at six, something happened. I guess I had a slightly wild glint in my eye. Or maybe he'd been there longer than I realised and overheard my end of  the heated conversation with the Merriam-Webster. Whatever. He was clearly concerned. And that was before I looked up at him and started to giggle hysterically, while also sobbing, and gesticulating towards the dictionaries.

I decided it was knock off time.

It only took me a few hours to recover, which bodes well for next week when I crank through s-z. Or so I thought. Tonight I'm wondering if perhaps the whole experience has enhanced my OCD tendencies somewhat...

We recently moved house, and today I bought one of those things you hang in the shower to keep soap, shampoo etc in.

When I was having a shower tonight, I realised that- unless you are very careful about how you arrange said soap, shampoo etc - it hangs at an ugly angle. I spent a fair bit of time working out the best way  to make it all hang nicely (don't worry- when I realised this was going to take some time, I turned off the water so as not to waste).

When I realised what I was doing, I laughed at myself. Well, giggled, actually. Rather hysterically, crouched in the shower stall. And thought about looking up the word "balance" in the Macquarie and Collins...

The joy of Yolngu Matha pronouns

English personal pronouns
1st person singular                   I
2nd person singular                  you
3rd person singular                  s/he/it
1st person plural                      we
2nd person plural                     you all (y'all)
3rd person plural                     they

Yolngu  Matha personal pronouns
1st person singular                ngarra
2nd person singular               nhe
3rd person singular               ngayi
1st person dual inclusive       ngali
1st person dual exclusive      linyu
1st person plural inclusive     limurr
1st person plural exclusive    napurr
2nd person plural                nhuma
3rd person dual                  manda
3rd person plural                nhuma

Confused? Basically this means you can talk about someone in a gender-neutral way.

Also, here's a conversation I had with a colleague today that made me realise how awesome the inclusive/exclusive concept is.

English:
We (James and I) worked on it today and if you're free tomorrow we (you and I) could go over it and then on Friday we (colleagues other than you plus I) have a meeting until ten, but  after that we (you, James and I) could finish it off.

Yolngu Matha (or at least, YM pronouns- keeping the rest in English out of respect for the English-only readers):
Linyu worked on it today, and if nhe are free tomorrow ngali could go over it and then on Friday napurr have a meeting until 10, but after that limurr could finish it off.

Am I the only one who finds that exciting? Still confused? Study another language, it changes your world.... :)

Gainfully employed: Day 3 wherein I damage company property

Okay, so I'm now working at [redacted] and today I was sent out to do "site maintenance". Site maintenance is deadly dull and time consuming and sends me out to all the industrial estates of Darwin to do the minor stuff that the more senior members of my company fond too boring and time consuming to do.

(I always assumed growing up would suck, now I have evidence.)

Anyway, there's a company car. It's a little front-wheel drive automatic Toyota Corolla. I drive a big beefy manual Nissan Patrol. What follows is a result of that inexperience.

I reverse out of the driveway and into the street. I instinctively apply a little more gas to stop me from rolling down the hill and move to put it in drive.

ZOOOM. CRUNCH.

It turns out that a Corolla is quite a lot lighter than a Patrol and doesn't need help on the gas to stop it from rolling down a hill. Also, automatics aren't really meant for the quick gear change I'm used to. The car shot back and scraped along a hinge on a ute behind me. This left a nasty scratch on the Corolla and nothing at all on the ute.

I meet the ute guy walking from the take-away shop and after careful perusal of his vehicle he could see that it was remotely possible that I left some powdered paint on his car and then laughed his arse off at the nasty scratch on the work Corolla.

I check the car for damage that actually impairs the function of the vehicle and there appears to be none. I figure I should go earn some money for [redacted] before I get fired so drive into town and perform a site maintenance before coming back and telling the boss.

Boss is understanding and says that's what insurance is for but grows a little more peeved when he sees the extent of the damage.

I go and do more site maintenance jobs (I can't actually express how dull these things are but they do make one feel virtuous, like taking out the garbage or clearing out your email). I get back at 4.30 and take a call from the boss as I get to the office. He says someone called to tell him that one of our cars was driving around with a flat tire - my car.

Apparently front-wheel drive vehicles have very little weight in the back so you can drive for HOURS without noticing that a tire is flat.

Front-wheel drives - how do they work?

Day three, people, day three.

#Occupy movement kapows comics

The Beginning of the American Fall
Stephanie McMillan
Cartoonmovement.com

The Adventures of Unemployed Man
Erich Origen and Gan Golan
Little, Brown, October 2010. 80 pp.

Action Comics
Grant Morrison
Detective Comics

The worldwide Occupy protests have inspired a lot of music over the past few months. But it has also broken into artistic circles some might not know of. One such area is comics.

Stephanie McMillan, the creator of the Minimum Security comics, has created a seven-page comic of her experiences when the Stop The Machine and Occupy DC protests united on October 7.

Unlike the other comics (and her own work in MS), The Beginning of the American Fall deals with conflicts and difficulties of bringing the two protest groups together.

It also details the day-to-day organising challenges, such as decision-making, food and sanitation for the protest camp.

Other comic artists have been documenting the struggles of the Occupy movement. On November 16, ComicsAlliance.com featured a spread of comic artists showing interviews of people at the protests.

Last year, Erich Origen and Gan Golan launched their response to the financial crisis in the US with The Adventures of Unemployed Man. The comic is set in a world where everyone is a superhero, but the economy has doomed most to live in the tent city of Capetown.

Unemployed Man fights alongside fellow superheroes Wonder Mother, the student debt-ridden Master of Degrees and the “invisible” migrant worker Fantasma. Together they fight the League of Just Us and the forces of the Invisible Hand.

Although it was launched before the occupy movement took off, it quickly became popular. Unemployed Man and his fellow heroes were popular costumes at Ocuppy Portland in the US over Halloween.

The art and storytelling style of UM is similar to the classic works of Jack Kirby, who created Captain America, and Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster who created Superman. This is an homage to the classic creations.

But the Occupy spirit has hit mainstream comics as well. On August 31, DC comics relaunched its entire line of titles. Many changes were made to iconic characters, and among them Superman got a facelift. His tights were replaced by jeans and he now fights injustice against the wishes of the authorities. This is both as Superman and in his alter ego as Clark Kent, crusading journalist.

Action Comics writer Grant Morrison told Wired on July 19: “ I’m looking back at the original Superman as a champion of the oppressed, and not necessarily a figure of law and order or patriotism.”

Wired also featured artwork by Anjin Anhut showing Batman as Bruce Wayne with a sign saying “Raise My Taxes”, evoking the call by milionaire Warren Buffet to do the same.

Multimedia producer Matthew Pizzolo has created a project called Occupy Comics to unite some of this work.

“I think Occupy Wall Street needs art more than it needs a list of demands,” Pizollo said on the website. "I think artists and writers of comic books have a unique ability to evoke broad ideas and ideals in captivating, dramatic ways.

“Comics is a small world compared to scale the protests have taken, but think globally act locally, right? A single piece of art can ultimately transcend everything else.”

Occupy Comics is new, but it is seeking to raise funds to support the movement and promote its ideas. Check it out at Occupy Comics.

Reprinted from Green Left Weekly.

Digital TV and Aboriginal Languages and Culture

Language and education specialists are concerned the federal government's national roll-out of digital television will have a detrimental effect on the preservation and transmission of Aboriginal languages and cultures.

In 1987, the Broadcasting for Remote Aboriginal Communities Scheme (BRACS) was  established, to balance the introduction of mainstream TV channels (via satellite) into remote communites with some local control and  ability to broadcast local content. Typically  this saw communities having free-to-air access to between two and four mainstream channels, plus Aboriginal-content channels such as National Indigenous Television (NITV) and Indigenous Community Television (ICTV). A lot of ICTV's content is in Aboriginal languages, and is produced by Aboriginal people in their own communities.

Apart from NITV and ICTV, BRACS also  allowed individual communities to broadcast local content.

In her joint submission to the inquiry with Dr William Fogarty, Dr Inge Kral, a research fellow at the Centre for Aboriginal Economic  Policy Research, emphasised the central role multidmedia technologies,  specifically video production, play in contemporary remote Aboriginal life. "Where young people have access to resources they are engaging in digital cultural heritage projects and creative cultural multimedia and music production for broadcasting, festivals and enterprise. Importantly, such activities commonly incorporate Indigenous languages", she said. "Here young adults are exhibiting pride in Indigenous language and culture and modelling of purpose for mother tongue and English language literacy for the next generation."

With almost total unemployment on communities, and limited formal education opportunites beyond school, boredom is a huge factor, particularly for young people. Increasingly, community media and resource centres are becoming places of informal learning, cultural expression and language maintenance. Kral pointed to the popularity of music recording software, which will often also inspire young musicians to film music clips, design CD covers and upload resources to the web.

The ability for such youth-initiated, local content to be broadcast to the community in turn fosters cultural pride and encourages further engagement and activity.

But the digital TV roll-out threatens this flowering informal Aboriginal media industry. The roll-out, according to Kral, will undermine communities' broadcasting ability, as direct satellite-to-home technology replaces the current communtiy-based transmitters. She  told the inquiry: "Remote communities will have 16 channels of mainstream, monolingual, monocultural English language TV and no Indigenous services. This will lead to an onslaught of Western English language images and cultural content.

"It will see an undermining of the motivation for Indigenous youth to participate in activities and training leading to a potential area of employment in the enterprise generation. It will also impact on Indigenous language and culture maintenance and it will hinder one important means by which community pride in Indigenous languages is generated."

The Indigenous Remote Communcations Association (IRCA), in an October submission to the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, noted: "For many remote Indigenous people, convergence spells an increasing threat to their fragile linguistic and cultural world, with western media and values distracting young people from gaining cultural knowledge. They feel like a tsunami of mainstream media and communications is bearing down upon them via the internet, 16 channels of digital TV and new media platforms."


In September, communications minister Stephen Conroy announced SBS and NITV would enter discussions about a possible merger. If successful, this could ensure the continuation of NITV, and mean it was accessed by more people, as it is currently not a free-to-air service. But some argue NITV, while valuable,  cannot replace local community-produced content. According to IRCA, "NITV tends not be popular in most remote communities with the programming, typically in English with urban presenters, not regarded by remote viewers as reflective of their experience, views and cultural identity".


IRCA has also pointed out, in Joining the Dots: Dreaming a Digital Future for Remote Indigenous Media, that the benefits of direct-to-home TV technology assume a particular way of accessing media - a particular way of life - that doesn't necessarily apply to remote Aboriginal communities: typically, people move from house to house, watch television outside in large groups, use exention leads to take TVs to sorry camps away from the house.


Remote Aboriginal people  - particularly young people - are embracing new technologies at an impressive rate. Far from this signalling a threat to their language and culture, research is proving that new technologies are  being adapted and used to maintain, share, and develop cultural and linguistic heritage. For this to continue, it is vital that any technological upgrades do not come at the expense of local control of content, linguistic diversity and equal access to content production. Young Aboriginal people are showing that embracing the digital age is not at all at odds with celebrating and expressing one of the oldest continuous cultures on Earth. Can the digital TV roll-out improve their access to technology without sacrificing their control over it?