1. 44
2017
An American Editor, Richard Adin
THE POWER OF WORDS
TECH CORNER GUEST BLOG
SfEP’s Technical Director, John Espirian Katherine Barber, Canada’s Word Lady
FEWER WORDS, MORE GRAPHICS I COULD HAVE DANCED A LOT
REPORTAGE – Sally Hill on BEST PRACTICE – David McKay on
DISABILITY INSURANCE FOR ZZP-ers TRANSLATING THE GREAT WAR
BOOK REVIEW – Working Words PROFILE – Out of Afrikaans
by Elizabeth Manning Murphy by Anne Hodgkinson
3. 3 eSense 44 | January-March | 2017
In this issue
EDITORIAL
What are words worth? 12
COVER STORY
The power of words 14
REPORTAGE
Disability insurance for ZZP-ers 17
TECH CORNER
Fewer words, more graphics 19
BEST PRACTICE
Translating the Great War: 1 12
BOOK REVIEW
Of words and itchy pencils 15
LETTER TO eSENSE
The last word 16
PROFILE
Out of Afrikaans 17
GUEST BLOG
I could have danced a lot 19
NEWS & VIEWS
Hi Society 21
FROM THE EC
So long, farewell, adieu… 26
4. C O V E R S T O R Y
4 eSense 44 | January-March | 2017
The power of words
by Richard Adin, An American Editor
Richard (Rich) Adin has more than 30 years’ experience as
an independent editor working for authors and publishers.
He blogs about the profession on An American Editor. This is
one of his essays
We have all heard the maxim ‘The pen is mightier than the sword.’
Although much older as an idea, the maxim comes from the 1839 play
Richelieu; Or the Conspiracy by Edward Bulwer-Lytton, in which
Richelieu says:
True, This! –
Beneath the rule of men entirely great
The pen is mightier than the sword. Behold
The arch-enchanters wand! – itself is nothing! –
But taking sorcery from the master-hand
To paralyse the Caesars, and to strike
The loud earth breathless! – Take away the sword –
States can be saved without it!
Words, spoken or written, can influence the course of history. Consider,
for a contemporary example, US president Trump’s words about
defending the Baltic States as required by the NATO treaty: ‘If they fulfill
their obligations to us, the answer is yes’ (‘Donald Trump Sets Conditions
for Defending NATO Allies Against Attack’ by David E. Sanger and
Maggie Haberman, The New York Times, July 20, 2016). With these
words, Trump has changed an absolute obligation into a conditional
obligation. More importantly, he has used words that are subject to
differing interpretation, and an audience can never be certain exactly
what ‘fulfill their obligations to us’ means. How different the meaning
would be had Trump instead said something like: ‘Yes, but I plan to make
sure that they are fulfilling their obligations to us, too.’ Problematically for
the United States, the words he spoke reverberated around the world.
Japan and Korea, for example, wondered whether a President Trump
would honor America’s commitments to protect them; Europe has begun
to panic – all from a few words.
One other example is Donald Trump’s recent statement: ‘By the way,
and if she gets the pick – if she gets the pick of her judges, nothing you
can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I
dunno’ (see the editorial ‘Trump Must Go: Hinting at Assassination Is Too
Much, Even for Him,’ Daily News [New York], August 9, 2016, and
‘Donald Trump Suggests “Second Amendment People” Could Act
Against Hillary Clinton’ by Nick Corasaniti and Maggie Haberman, The
New York Times, August 9, 2016). Many Trump supporters rushed to his
defense and said he was joking; Trump said he wasn’t joking, then said
he was joking. The problem is that Trump did not carefully choose his words; he forgot a fundamental principle
by which editors must work: words have power!
For this reason, editors have a special obligation to be literate and knowledgeable about language. Even the
simplest words can matter because words have power, and some words have more power in a particular context
because they more accurately and forcefully express the message by not requiring the reader (or listener) to
interpret them – they deliver a clear, unmistakable message.
Rich Adin: ‘My first career was that of a
lawyer. I was drawn to law because of my
love of language and words. After
practicing law in Indiana for 7 years, I
returned to New York and found my way
into the publishing world. In the beginning,
I learned my craft working for Matthew
Bender & Co. and then Prentice Hall/Simon
& Schuster. In 1984, I began offering my
editing services on a part-time basis and in
1991, I opened the doors of Freelance
Editorial Services, which has been my
primary home since.’
In the 1990s, Adin was the publisher and
CEO of Rhache Publishers Ltd., a small
indie press. In the 2000s, he founded
wordsnSync Ltd, which is the home of the
online style sheet he created and of
EditTools (see Valuable resources, below),
a collection of Word macros designed to
make the editing process more productive,
efficient, and consistent. He also founded
An American Editor Ltd, the parent
company of the An American Editor blog.
5. C O V E R S T O R Y
5 eSense 44 | January-March | 2017
Consider due to. I know in my editing work I see this phrase used frequently as a substitute for clearer, more
powerful (and accurate) words and phrases. I have no idea how many words and phrases due to acts as a
substitute for, but in my EditTools Toggle Word dataset I have 22 words and phrases that I choose among as
replacements for due to. I understand that as a result of usage over time, once distinctly used words have
become treated as roughly synonymous, at least in speech, good examples being the use of due to in place of,
among many others, caused by or because of. It is easy to understand how this happened, and it is also easy to
see the role of editors in abetting this transition.
The question is not whether due to and because of are viewed as being roughly synonymous in common
parlance. The question is whether editors should treat them as synonymous rather than as nonsynonymous. The
answer depends on several factors, not least of which is the editor’s command of language and understanding of
the importance of precise language as a method of communication. The more skilled the editor, the greater the
striving for word precision and the less tolerance for ambiguity.
The problem with due to is that when it is used as a substitute for more precise language, the reader (or
listener) must guess at meaning. Due to is ambiguous when not used in the sense of ‘attributable to’ – is it a
substitute for because of or caused by or as a consequence of or as a result of or resulting from or based on or
something else?
Fine-line distinctions
In the case of a president, the use of a vague word can lead to severe economic and military consequences. For
an author, it means that a weak statement is being made, one that lacks punch. Although using due to is an
excellent example of how to weaken a sentence, other words can have a similar effect.
Some might object that context will provide clarity, but that is not always the case. Consider Trump’s various
statements. In horror movies blood pours from the ears, nose, mouth, so why was that interpretation of his blood
comment – ‘…blood coming out of her wherever…’ – rejected (see ‘Donald Trump’s “Blood” Comment About
Megyn Kelly Draws Outrage’ by Holly Yan, CNN, August 8, 2015)? It is, in context, equally likely (if not more so)
that he meant wherever in the horror movie sense, but that is not the interpretation assigned by others.
Suppose, instead, Trump had said: ‘I have hated her since I have been treated unfairly.’ Does he hate her since
the first time he was treated unfairly – the passage-of-time sense – or because he was treated unfairly – the
causal sense? Context might or might not clarify meaning. Or consider Trump’s recent Second Amendment
statement, quoted above. Context didn’t provide meaning or understanding. More importantly, does a good
editor say, ‘Because in context _____ must, in my interpretation, equal (ie, mean) _____, I do not need to query
it’? I think not; that there is any possibility of misinterpretation should be sufficient cause to query.
The purpose here is not to convince editors that we should be preserving these fine-line distinctions. The
issue is broader – language skills and mastery. In the absence of mastery, how do you know whether, for
example, since or due to is appropriately used (ie, leads to clarity rather than ambiguity)? Editors need to have
mastered their language so that they know these fine-line distinctions and can choose the appropriate words to
enhance clarity of meaning. Most editors – and based on responses to the copyediting test I have given job
applicants over many years, I would guess
it is close to 95% – would simply pass over
such usages and not ask themselves
whether the sentences involved are
communicating correctly, and thus not
query the author.
Consider again Donald Trump’s
statement about the Baltics and NATO.
What if he had said, ‘Since they do not
fulfill their obligations to us,’ rather than ‘If
they fulfill their obligations to us’? Would it
have been a more forceful statement if
because had been used rather than since?
After all, because is considered a more
forceful conjunction than causal since
(‘inasmuch as,’ ‘seeing as’).
Words are powerful weapons. They can
be the source of peace or war, understand-
ing or misunderstanding, depending on how
they are used. When we speak, a significant part of what is meant by our words is determined by how we say
them – tone and emphasis add meaning. With the written word, all aural and some visual clues are missing,
making the choice of words even more important.
‘The pen is mightier than the sword’ by illegalalien2000 Deviant Art
6. C O V E R S T O R Y
6 eSense 44 | January-March | 2017
A difference that matters when seeking an editor is the editor’s knowledge of language. Too many consumers of
editing services fail to focus on an editor’s mastery of language, yet knowing which is the ‘right’ word is the
difference between someone being just an editor and being a great editor, the difference between an editor who
helps an author achieve mediocrity and an editor who helps an author achieve greatness. Although today’s
editors often accept a word’s usage because it fits with the common usage (consider, eg, about and around
when conjoined with a quantity) and because the line separating the words is razor-edge thin, knowing that line
may make the difference between good writing and great writing. Just as is true with due to, around, about,
approximately, since, and because, so it is true with myriad other word combinations, such as who and whom,
that and which, that and who, convince and persuade.
Choosing the right word adds power to a statement; choosing a lesser but ‘equivalent’ word softens the
power of the message and, more importantly, can make a sentence’s meaning so ambiguous that audiences
may well miss – or reject – the intended point. The best editors are knowledgeable about the power of words
and choose among them thoughtfully and carefully.◄
Valuable resources
EditTools is a collection of MS Word macros for
professional editors. EditTools help a good editor be a
better editor by increasing consistency and accuracy
while speeding up the editing process. The datasets
are easily customized, making EditTools the perfect
adjunct to the editing process. Among other things, it
includes a macro to check for duplicate references
(see EditTools: Duplicate References – A Preview).
Popular essays
EditTools & My Editing Process for an overview of how to use
EditTools.
The 3 Stages of Copyediting, Part I. Links to Parts II and III appear at
the end of the essay in the ‘Related’ section. Part II discusses how
EditTools fits within the editing process.
The Business of Editing: What an Author Should Give an Editor
Editor, Editor, Everywhere an Editor
The Business of Editing: Evaluating a Manuscript
Book
The Business of Editing: Effective and Efficient Ways to Think, Work,
and Prosper. Available from Waking Lion Press and Amazon
Paperback ISBN: 9781434103697; hardcover ISBN: 9781434103727
Also available as an ebook
Blog
Subscribe here to An American Editor◄
►Special offer for eSense readers◄
When you purchase EditTools ($69) between now and 11:59 pm New York time on 29 February 2017 from the
wordsnSync website, mention the code eSense44 in the instructions box on PayPal (the only accepted form of
payment) or, if you forget to add the code there, send Rich Adin a separate email with the code and proof of
purchase (your name and email address used at PayPal) and you will receive a free copy of the current version
of the EditTools Starter Datasets. These datasets are not downloadable from wordsnSync; you need a special
link to get them. The purchase of EditTools must be via wordsnSync. The offer does not extend to purchasers of
the Editor’s Toolkit Ultimate package that includes EditTools, PerfectIt, and Editor’s Toolkit 2014.◄
Extracted from the original essay on An American Editor and reproduced with the kind permission of the author and An American Editor Ltd.
Copyright 2017 Richard Adin, An American Editor. All Rights Reserved.
8. R E P O RT A G E
8 eSense 44 | January-March | 2017
Kumar joined his group in Zwolle more out of curiosity. He says: ‘I attended a meeting initiated by a network
organization I'm a member of.’ He also saw it as an opportunity for extra networking, though he hasn’t had any
business through it so far.
These members of
SENSE have joined
bread funds (l-r): Sally
Hill, Kay Dixon,
Kumar Jamdagni &
Christine Gardner
If you’re a good
networker and
know your way
around the
internet, a local bread fund should not be hard to find. For me here in Zwolle, Kumar’s group was already full. So
when I saw an announcement for a meeting about a new group that I unfortunately couldn’t attend, I made sure
to get on the list of names interested in hearing more. Both Christine and Kumar were introduced through local
freelancers’ networks. Christine: ‘I found my bread fund via a local zzp network group that organized an
information evening. After the organizer dropped out, I took over the job of getting the broodfonds up and
running.’ Part of joining is deciding your level of income. This was something that I personally had to think about
for a bit. For Kumar the choice wasn’t too difficult: ‘It's the same amount I pay out to myself as a salary every
month.’ Christine told me: ‘I looked at my fixed and variable costs and estimated what I could live on without
having to worry about paying the bills.’
Trust is essential
Just recently I received an email telling me that our group has its first person off sick. I asked Christine and
Kumar how many people in their groups have been ill and for how long. In Christine’s group it’s been three
people so far; one for 1.5 months, another for almost a year and a third for five months. ‘However’, she told me,
‘collectively we contribute more each month than we pay out, so our buffer is still growing.’ Kumar’s experience
is similar: ‘Off the cuff I can tell you that we started our first year without anyone going sick, during the second
year we had on average one or two claimants but not always for the full amount. We did experience a period,
just before the introduction of the alliantie [see below], when we had a ‘red code’ warning, which would have
meant some claimants not getting their entitlement.’
You can only claim payments from your bread fund for two years, and if after that time you’re still unable to
work you will be asked to leave. Some people therefore have disability insurance that pays out after two years. I
asked Christine and Kumar whether they’d considered this, but like me neither of them have any other form of
disability insurance. Christine: ‘I think that if I’m still unable to work after two years, my business will not be able
to survive and I will use the time to come up with a different solution for my income.’ Kay’s bread fund has had
experience with this. She told me: ‘Our broodfonds has had quite a few people to support in the nine months I’ve
been a member. Most of them have only needed a few months’ support while they recovered from injuries, but
one member had a serious stroke last year and is unlikely to work again. We’ll be supporting him for two years
and then he’ll have to call on his other disability insurance (which he luckily has).’
The national bread fund organization has now set up something called the Broodfondsalliantie, which allows
the different bread funds to help each other out. Kumar likes the idea: ‘It serves to mitigate the risk of insufficient
funds being available, either in the early days of a broodfonds' existence when the buffer might not be that high,
or if a few members of a well-established group go sick at once. So it's a really good move.’ Christine: ‘In theory,
it sounds like a good idea. At the last AGM, our group voted not to join for the time being but to look at it again in
the future.’ My own bread fund has not joined either. A potential disadvantage is that you may then find yourself
paying contributions to someone outside your network.
One of the strong points of a bread fund is supposed to be that since everyone knows each other there is less
chance of fraudulent claims. My impression is that freelancers are very unlikely to try and profit unfairly from
other freelancers since we’re all in the same boat. Kumar agrees, ‘The whole system is based on trust and the
better you know your fellow members, the greater the social control, making fraud less likely.’
Sounds great! Where can I join?
You can see on this map where current groups are, with those marked green still open for new members. Those
that are full (marked orange) will likely have a list of names of people interested in starting a new group. And if
you’d like more info about the organizational side of things, Christine is happy for you to get in touch by email.◄
9. TECH CORNER
9 eSense 44 | January-March | 2017
Fewer words, more graphics
By Marianne Orchard
Technical writer John Espirian is the internet director
of our sister society in the UK, the SfEP. Here he talks
with Marianne Orchard about the difference between
copywriting and technical writing, embracing social media
and cloud technologies, and how he thinks we’ll be
writing fewer words in future
Perhaps you could begin by telling us a bit
about yourself. Does this picture of you on
Cardiff Castle symbolize your battle to create
good content?
Ha! It wasn't meant to symbolize anything, but it
was a fun day out with relatives who were visiting
from Turkey and Germany – seeing the sights
and experiencing the fresh air (and swirling
winds!). That said, it's true that I do try to create
good content. I'm thinking about that more and
more, as it happens. There's a lot of terrible
content out there, mostly because it's the same
old same old. There's really no point churning out
that cookie-cutter content all the time.
So how do you avoid cookie-cutter content?
There's never enough focus on the audience.
When you understand who's consuming the
content, you can write in a way that targets that
one ideal reader. If they come away feeling as
though you've had a conversation with them, as
though you've written directly to and for them,
that's a good piece of writing.
You’re a technical writer. Could you explain
what this involves?
There are so many labels for writers that it's easy
to confuse what the terms all mean. When I first
heard the term, I pictured someone working on
complicated blueprints. Afterwards, I associated it
with producing user manuals – because that's
what a lot of my work has involved. In fact, I see
technical writing as a far broader area. It's any
sort of writing whose primary aim is to educate
and inform the reader about the way something –
usually a product, service or process – works. Unlike copywriting, which is geared towards action (usually sales),
technical writing is all about support. It's about learning and understanding rather than buying and selling.
You went freelance in 2009. What made you decide to do this?
When my long-term desk job as a software tester and quality assurance manager came to an end (thanks,
redundancy!), I knew that working for myself from home would suit me better. And it did. I called on old
connections from the in-house job and set about working on writing and editing the sorts of documents that I'd
been used to dealing with for years. A lucky break, and I haven't looked back. These days, I'd never want to
10. TECH CORNER
10 eSense 44 | January-March | 2017
work in an office again. Freelancers aren't as 'free' as some people think, but I think the freelance approach
makes for a much better lifestyle.
How do you go about finding clients?
I've focused a lot on my marketing over the past year, and that means I'm fairly easy to find via my website and
on LinkedIn. Those are the two main streams for clients to find me. This year, I want to do more to chase after
the clients I want to work for – the Buffers and MailChimps of this world. Those sorts of communications are
likely to be via Twitter, my favourite social network.
Do you have any tips for anyone just starting out?
Get yourself a professional-looking website and LinkedIn presence. Don't be afraid to go down the cold e-mail
route. Find a community of supportive colleagues and ask them every question you can think of. In the editorial
world, people are far more supportive than many might think.
You’re the SfEP’s internet director. What does this entail and how did you get into it?
When I left my in-house job, I thought an editorial career would make most sense. I studied with the Publishing
Training Centre, at the same time discovering the SfEP. As someone naturally a bit more techie than the
average editor, I ended up helping the Society with its website and other online activities. After a few years,
more responsibility beckoned and I was elected as a director in late 2013. It's a volunteer role that has been
great in showing me how to work in an executive team while also serving our members across the UK.
You’re a strong proponent of social media. Why do you think social media is so important?
I think social media offers the best and most responsive form of personal marketing available. And 'personal' is
at the hub of that for me. I'm a natural connector, I like talking to others and I love helping people. Social media
was built for me. And, these days, people who don't engage in this way could easily be skipped over in favour of
those who do. As many marketers will tell you, top of mind is often top of preference. If people see you around in
lots of places (social networks, for example), they're more likely to remember you when an opportunity arises.
That can be the difference between scratching around for work and being really busy.
Do you have a favourite social media
platform and which one would you
recommend to newbies?
Definitely go for LinkedIn. In my experience,
that's the social network most likely to result in
generating paid work, and I've also found that
clients who have found me via LinkedIn are
generally willing to pay more than those who
have found me via my website or by other
means.
I focus on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. I'd
caution against trying to do too much too quickly,
though. If you're not on social media at all, start
with one network, be good at using it, and then
move on to the others.
What software do you use in your work?
Technical writers often use Help Authoring Tools
(HATs) to help create the single-source material
that turns into online manuals, PDFs and so on. I
used to use Adobe RoboHelp but switched to
MadCap Flare a few years ago. These are
heavyweight programs – a typical copywriter might be able to get by with just humble old Word. I like working in
HTML, too, but a good plain-text editor is all you need for that. I use BBEdit on my Mac. As for editorial tools, I
don't really bother with them at all. The only thing I wouldn't be without is PerfectIt by Intelligent Editing. That's
wonderful for checking consistency.
Speaking of humble old Word: any tips?
If you spend a lot of time in Word (I don't), then I would recommend learning all the shortcuts you can and also
the basics of how macros work. Colleagues rave about the power of tools such as FRedit by Paul Beverley [and
EditTools by Richard Adin; see cover story of this issue – Ed.]. Anything that allows you to focus less on the
mechanical side of editing and more on the artistic side has got to be good.
12. BEST PRACTICE
12 eSense 44 | January-March | 2017
Translating the Great War: 1
By David McKay
SENSE member David McKay’s work on War and Turpentine,
the First World War novel by Flemish author Stefan Hertmans,
has earned accolades from critics worldwide. Here he begins
a two-part account of how he tackled its translation challenges
Although War and Turpentine is a novel, the middle section – the
part set in wartime – is closely based on unpublished memoirs
written by Hertmans’s grandfather about his experiences as a
soldier. I was nervous about getting the war scenes right, so I
called in the cavalry. The Expertisecentrum Literair Vertalen at
Utrecht University has a wonderful programme that matches
translators working on literary books with expert advisers. This
programme is often used to match novice literary translators with
experienced mentors, but it’s also possible to apply for expert
advice about the subject matter of the book. I asked for an adviser
who knew both about the war and, just as importantly, about the
English language and literature of the period.
I was ultimately paired with Kate Macdonald, an expert on early
20th-century literature and early literary responses to the First
World War. Kate also has editing and writing experience and a
strong interest in contemporary novels. On top of that she lives in
Belgium and although she doesn’t speak Dutch, she’s very familiar
with the local culture. It was a match made in heaven. Kate saved
me from both historical and linguistic gaffes, not only in the war
section but throughout the manuscript. On one page, she
suggested the concise, idiomatic ‘Fall in!’ instead of the unwieldy
‘Fall into formation!’ and noted that the ‘courier’ should be a
‘runner.’ Sometimes she inserted a more contextually appropriate
term where my translation was too literal or general: ‘a falling
scrap of iron’ became ‘falling shrapnel.’ She also offered a first
round of general comments, for
instance proposing ‘slowly and
relentlessly’ instead of ‘slowly
but surely’ to avoid the cliché.
Of course, I had to translate
the book myself before Kate
could do any of that. To brush
up on my Edwardian English, I
pored over the classic British
First World War memoirs about
Flanders Fields. My best
teachers were Siegfried Sassoon, Robert Graves and Edmund Blunden. To
make sure I didn’t miss a detail, I found the Dutch translations of some of
these books and did occasional back-translations of short passages from
Dutch into English. That gave me the chance to compare my own rough
English rendering to the original words. I still vividly remember learning from
Robert Graves that shells don’t fall: they drop. The back-translation exercise
was a wonderful way of getting under the skin of these authors and learning
all sorts of secrets about their prose, and I recommend it to many translators
for many purposes.
David McKay joined SENSE some 17 years
ago. Possessor of a master’s in linguistics,
he has been a professional translator since
1998, operating independently since 2006
as Open Book Translation.
David specializes in art, architecture,
history, social sciences and culture. He also
writes articles on translating for the arts.
Some recent works include:
for Athenaeum Boekhandel, an article
on translating the opening sentence of
War and Turpentine
for The ATA Chronicle, an article on
translating for museums
David was also interviewed by Lisa Carter
for the ‘Spotlight on’ feature of Intralingo
13. BEST PRACTICE
13 eSense 44 | January-March | 2017
English-speaking critics often compare translated books to other translated books. Many such comparisons are
made for good reasons; for example, many reviewers of War and Turpentine have pointed out the influence of
the German writer W.G. Sebald, which Hertmans freely acknowledges. It’s also tempting to liken War and
Turpentine to other well-known First World War novels translated into English, such as All Quiet on the Western
Front and Storm of Steel. Regardless of how apt these comparisons may be, I’m always a little squeamish as a
translator about drawing words and turns of phrase from other translations – it seems slightly cannibalistic, and
also strangely like cheating. I did take a good look at those books too, but I relied much more heavily on the
British authors.►
_______________________________________________
What the critics say about a
‘future classic’
‘In David McKay’s dazzlingly lyrical translation from the Dutch, every
detail has the heightened luminosity of a line of poetry, from the first
sight of a Zeppelin (‘this dream-fish drifting silently over our heads’)
to a dead horse hanging from a broken elm (‘perfectly straight, its
bloody, half-severed head gruesomely twisted against the cool
morning sky, its legs tangled in the remains of the tree like strange
branches’).... War and Turpentine has all the markings of a future
classic.’
Neel Mukherjee, The Guardian
‘David McKay … provides an artful translation of the book into
English.... War and Turpentine delivers a blast of narrative fresh air.’
Dominic Smith, The New York Times Book Review
‘[A] fluid translation from the Dutch by David McKay…. This serious
and dignified book is old-fashioned, too, in the pleasant sense that it
seems built to last.’
Dwight Garner, The New York Times
‘David McKay’s translation soars in the superb descriptions of battle,
the lulls and the frenzied onslaughts creating lasting images.’
Eileen Battersby, The Irish Times
‘Hertmans’s prose, with a deft translation from McKay, works with the
same full palette as Urbain Martien’s paintings: vivid, passionate–and
in the end, life-affirming.’
Publishers Weekly
‘David McKay’s work here is immensely readable, and comfortable in the book’s varied registers.’
Adam Rivett, The Australian
The Times and The Sunday Times: a Book of the Year 2016
The Economist: one of the top four novels of 2016
The New York Times: one of the 10 Best Books of 2016
_________________________________________________________________________________________
Colourful idiom
The Tommies (British soldiers) of the First World War were inventive language users. Their wordplay wrested
humour out of deadly serious threats: a shell that gave off black smoke was a ‘Jack Johnson,’ after the black
champion boxer, and a German trench mortar or Minenwerfer was a ‘Moaning Minnie.’ Flemish towns acquired
tongue-in-cheek English names: Ypres became ‘Wipers,’ and the British soldiers fighting in the trenches of the
Ypres Salient published a humorous magazine called The Wipers Times. Flemish soldiers, too, had their slang:
for instance, an infantryman was a zandstuiver or piot, and a clandestine café was a tingeltangel (a word so
musical that I left it in the final translation, with an explanation).
I drew on the colourful idiom of the Tommies (with the help of some online resources and, above all, the
marvellous book Trench Talk by Peter Doyle & Julian Walker) for two reasons: to find translations for Flemish
soldiers’ slang and, more importantly, to add richness and verisimilitude to the novel in English. The protagonist
Urbain Martien is sent to England to recover from a ‘cushy one’– an injury serious enough to require medical
15. BOOK REVIEW
15 eSense 44 | January-March | 2017
Of words and itchy pencils
by Helene Reid
Helene Reid looks at a tome billed as ‘a collection of chats… not a textbook,
but a friendly companion to books on grammar, style, punctuation, plain
English, editing and the business of being a freelance writer or editor’
Working Words
For editors, writers, teachers, students of English
grammar and wordsmiths all
Author: Elizabeth Manning Murphy
Publishers: The Canberra Society of Editors
ISBN 978-0-646-55991-9
A long time ago, when I was at a concert that didn’t quite
hold my attention, I was wondering what would happen if
the next morning’s review didn’t comment on the music,
but concentrated instead on the soprano’s cleavage, the
two different socks of the first cellist, and how much
younger the conductor looked from behind than when he
turned around. I was reminded of this when I first opened
Elizabeth Manning Murphy’s book. What a pleasantly
smooth cover, what a perfect weight, what a splendidly
spacious layout. And when did I last see a book about
style and grammar that had humorous photographic
illustrations?
By spacious layout I mean that there is so much white
on the page. The publishers were obviously not interested
in getting as many words as possible on as few pages as
possible. It makes it so relaxing to the eye, all this empty
space. Page 118 beats it all with just six lines of text on a
gloriously white background. It must surely be the
influence of the Australian landscape; Australians are not
nervous of empty space.
Aussie phenomena
Enough irrelevancies; let’s take a look at what’s in it. Working Words is divided into eight parts, entitled
successively: ‘The craft of editing’; ‘Editor beware: Ethical and legal considerations’; ‘The business of editing’;
‘Grammar – some basics’; ‘Grammar – beyond the basics’; ‘Punctuation – marks that matter’; ‘What is style?’;
and ‘The future of working words’. These are interspersed with so called itchypencils: light-hearted comments on
texts spotted on signs and billboards that struck the author. She explains the word herself: ‘Haven’t you often
spotted something on a signpost and thought “Oh for a pencil to write that down”? That’s itchypencilitis [...] so
these moments are called itchypencils.’ The examples in the book are Aussie [‘penomena’ – Ed.], for example,
the sign in Melbourne that says: Give way to merging trams. The one that inspired me to rush to my PC and
Google it dealt with Norfolk Island, or rather the Teritori of Norf’k Ailen, where they speak a language known as
Norfuk, a mixture of Tahitian and 18-century English. I must go there, quickly, before it dies out.
Not all these sections are of equal interest to us SENSE members (or other readers of eSense) and a book
that addresses such a wide and varied audience by definition includes old news as well as new knowledge. I am
not going to discuss the chapter that goes into the difference between continual and continuous, disinterested
and uninterested, and between fewer and less (the author takes the conservative view). Nor the chapters on
grammar, the basics and more basics of it. However, don’t skip altogether the chapter called ‘Grammar –
beyond the basics’ because it discusses all sorts of fascinating phenomena that I would classify as syntax or
even idiom, but not under grammar. The difference between ‘Do you mind me smoking’ and ‘Do you mind my
smoking’ is too subtle for grammar; that’s idiom surely? When I have to explain to people why I think English is
16. BOOK REVIEW
16 eSense 44 | January-March | 2017
the most sophisticated language on earth (well... as far as I know), I tell them that it has hardly any grammar but
consists almost entirely of idiom. Plus the fact that it has no diacritics. How user-friendly can a language be?
And more to the point: How user-friendly can a book on good English be? What makes Working Words so
readable is that it is superbly written. It is perhaps not a book you would
want to read from cover to cover, but once you dip into it, you can’t stop. It’s
witty, it’s concise, and it’s knowledgeable. Also it’s friendly, and some of the
books I’ve been reviewing for you were unfriendly to the point of being
aggressive. Elizabeth Manning Murphy, on the other hand, is a person I’d
like to have dinner with.
Helene Reid
There is one thing I would like to quibble about. In the chapter called
‘Project management’ the writer is being not quite realistic. As an example
for working on a particular job, she sets out a chart, which I will render as text. On Monday you identify the
audience, you set the style and the level of the language, and you read the typescript; on Tuesday you check
and correct spelling, punctuation, grammar and paragraphing; on Wednesday you check for consistency of the
writing style; on Thursday you send the marked-up typescript to the author and discuss the changes; on Friday
you send the typescript to the printer.
My question is: If it takes you a whole day to read a text you’re editing, how can you do the correcting or
editing in one day? Also slightly unrealistic is the insistence on having a contract with your client. In my line of
work, a couple of emails or even a single phone call is all I have to go on. I just have to trust that my clients will
pay in the end. I wonder how many of us really insist on a proper contract. Ms Manning Murphy suggests
including the following sentence when you quote for a job: ‘I should emphasise that my editing is my
recommendation only. The client is free to accept or reject my recommendations, and I do not assume any
liability for what may ensue from the client’s acceptance or rejection of my recommendations.’ There’s a hostile
world out there!◄
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
The last word
eSense welcomes letters from readers. Send your views
on any aspect of the magazine to esense@sense-online
It was kind of you to include a review of my book, Accidence Will Happen: The Non-Pedantic Guide to English,
in your April-May 2016 issue. Your reviewer, Helene Reid, is absolutely right that it is not a usage guide but ‘an
extended diatribe against the people Kamm calls pundits,
sticklers and pedants’.
I'm sorry Ms Reid was irked by its tone and realise that not
everyone thinks my jokes are funny but there are, even so, two
errors in her review that I'm concerned your readers should be
disabused of.
First, it is not true that I argue that ‘there is no right or wrong
in language’. I've never met anyone who holds such an opinion.
As it's an author's responsibility to ensure clarity for the reader, I
must accept that the fault is mine that Ms Reid drew this
interpretation. But in truth I still don't see how I can have been
more explicit in my message that, for example (pp. 28-9), ‘so far
from believing that “anything goes”, linguists love rules’.
Second, Ms Reid is mistaken when she complains that I
‘relentlessly diss ... most of [my] colleague linguists’. I'm not a
linguist and neither are the people I criticize: we are pundits
ranging from sensitive and informed commentators like HW Fowler to unlettered ignoramuses like NM Gwynne.
My argument is that people who write about language need to take account of the findings of scholarly
linguistics. That's what I've done. If nothing else, readers of my book will gain a reliable insight into how linguists
approach the subject of prescriptive grammar.
– Oliver Kamm
Leader writer & columnist, The Times◄
17. PROFILE
17 eSense 44 | January-March | 2017
Out of Afrikaans
By Anne Hodgkinson
SENSE newcomer Samuel Murray is a specialist in
translating into and out of Afrikaans. Here he chats
with Anne Hodgkinson about his rather unusual (for
our Society) language pairing and some of his other
passions in life – like climbing up the sides of cliffs
First of all, how did you end up here from sunny
South Africa?
I ended up in the Netherlands because Marion, my
wife, is Dutch. We felt like emigrating somewhere, and
coming here was a logical choice. Marion and my two
children, Finn and Norah, had no trouble getting
settled, but it took me two years to get all the
necessary permissions to immigrate. During that time,
I was what we call in Afrikaans a ‘grass widower’,
staying for months at a time with either my parents or
her parents in South Africa.
Marion ended up in South Africa because her father
and her brother established a polystyrene factory in
Cape Town about 20 years ago. She originally had no
plans to emigrate to South Africa, but decided to join
her parents after falling in love with a handsome local
guy. Fortunately (for me), their romance lasted only
three months. I met my future wife during a mountain
hiking trip two years later.
We knew fairly early on that our children both
needed special education. In South Africa, going to
school costs a lot of money, and special schools cost
even more. Moreover, there are very, very few schools
in South Africa that would have suited our needs. It
simply made sense to emigrate to a place where the
right education was available, and free.
Is there much work into or out of Afrikaans in the
Netherlands, or do you have South African clients
you can keep on thanks to the Internet?
More than 70% of my clients are American. Even while
I lived in South Africa, only a small amount of my
translation work came from within the country. The
start of my freelance translation career coincided with
the rise of translation platforms such as Translators'
Cafe and ProZ.com, which provided much easier
access to translation agencies, and foreign work soon
became my main source of work due to favourable
exchange rates and relatively high foreign translation
rates.
Afrikaans is your native language – how do you
get on in Dutch?
As you probably know, Dutch and Afrikaans are
mutually intelligible to a degree. This made the initial
transition to living in the Netherlands easier, but it also
made learning proper Dutch more difficult. In fact, I still
Avid rock climber Samuel Murray, snapped in action
a few years ago on a real life klimmuur in South Africa
18. PROFILE
18 eSense 44 | January-March | 2017
can't speak Dutch properly, despite having lived in the Netherlands for five years and having passed the
Staatsexamen NT2. Luckily, the Dutch tend to understand what I say as long as I fake the accent, move my
arms, use fixed expressions, pad with synonyms and stick to simple tenses. My wife quickly learnt and adopted
Afrikaans as her language of choice during her decade in South Africa, and she still prefers to speak Afrikaans
whenever possible. Our home language is Afrikaans, and the children use a mixture of Dutch and Afrikaans
when speaking to me. On rare occasions we also speak English, but my wife thinks I sound like a stranger in
English.
You seem to have written a lot besides translating – do you also do editing?
I'd like to think of myself mainly as a translator. I'm a fast and accurate translator, but a slow and mediocre
editor. The only ‘editing’ that I do is the proofreading of translations against their source texts, which I'm fairly
good at, as long as the text is in a CAT format. I can't proofread hard copy to save my life. Currently, almost half
of my current work involves first and second proofreading.
Enough of work, now let's talk about one of your
hobbies, rock climbing. When did you start it?
At the time when the rock climbing pictures on my
website were taken, I was more at home behind the
camera than in front of it. In the two years after my
family moved to the Netherlands, I often
accompanied my brother-in-law when he went on his
climbing excursions. In South Africa, ‘climbing’ often
means camping in the outdoors where you can see
the entire Milky Way at night, and hiking hours to a
natural klimmuur. So even if you're not a climber,
‘going climbing’ is anything but boring.
Marion and I do climb in the Netherlands, but my
association with climbing is that it is a social and
outdoor sport. We don't have lots of climbing
buddies in Apeldoorn and everything is indoors.
Rock climbing was one thing I did while I waited
for my immigration papers. Motorcycling was
another. My parents lived in Johannesburg, and my
parents-in-law lived in Cape Town, and I had no
other home at the time. I undertook the 1000 km
journey between those two cities several times,
using a 200 cc cruiser motorcycle, which I think the
Dutch would call a toermotorfiets.
Of course, you never take the shortest route on a
motorcycle. And South Africa has a good share of
mountain passes, good quality dirt roads and lonely
stops where you can hear the crunch of your boots
on the gravel and literally nothing, nothing else. (I have no motorcycle at this time. Nor do I have a Dutch
motorcycle driving license.) Once, while travelling to the town of Colesberg in the middle of South Africa, I
chanced upon a road sign to place called ‘Appeldoorn’, and snapped this selfie. This Appeldoorn is nothing but a
farmstead abandoned at the end of ten mile dirt track, though.
Interested readers can find out more about you on your professional website, which you’ve given the
enchanting name ‘leuce.com’. Did you call your site after the Greek nymph of the same name?
There is a much geekier explanation to it, I'm afraid. It involves IRC, a chat service where people don't use their
real names, an old girlfriend and a domain name blunder. I was using IRC regularly. My girlfriend at the time was
Lucy, so I chose ‘leucee’ as my IRC username. When we eventually broke up, I used variations, including
‘leuce’, on internet forums.
I also set up a personal website, leuce.com. When I got my first professional website, the domain's registrar,
not the brightest fellow, registered the domain in his own name instead of mine. His clever solution to this
blunder was to ‘just let the domain expire and then register it again in your own name.’ When the domain name
expired, that site was at #1 in Google for ‘afrikaans+english’, and naturally it got grabbed. Fortunately my
personal site was registered in my own name so I transferred my professional site to leuce.com/translate. SEO
was simpler in those days, and within a month or two leuce.com was #1 again in Google for ‘afrikaans+english’.
Only later did I discover that Leuce was a Classic name.◄
20. GUEST BLOG
20 eSense 44 | January-March | 2017
Lots about ‘a lot’
This picture, which has been circulating on Facebook,
bugs me. It bugs me a lot.
‘Of course it does,’ you say. ‘You're the Word Lady; it
must drive you CRAAAAZY when people misspell ‘a lot’.’
But that's not what bugs me. What bugs me is the
condescending, judgemental, hectoring, ‘I'm smarter
than you’ attitude that it reflects. Especially because the
people who spell ‘alot’ are actually showing more
intuitive sense for the language than the witty person
who came up with the absolutely false comparison to
‘acantaloupe’ and ‘aporkchop’ in this image. Ha ha ha,
aren't we all smart, we'd never write ‘acantaloupe’; only
idiots would do that.
But ‘a lot’ is not like ‘a cantaloupe’. ‘A cantaloupe’ is two lexical units, the article and the noun. You can stick
any number of adjectives (large, ripe, juicy, Ontario-grown, etc.) between the article and the noun. You can
change the indefinite article to a definite one or a possessive adjective: ‘the cantaloupe’, ‘get your hands off my
cantaloupe!’ or even not have an article at all: ‘I love cantaloupe.’
You cannot do any of this with ‘a lot’ because it is functioning most of the time as one lexical unit, not as an
article and a noun, but as an adverb. ‘I like ballet a lot’. You can't say ‘I like ballet the lot’ or ‘I like ballet a
huge/great/big lot’, though you can say ‘I like ballet a whole lot’ (don't ask me why you can say that, though I am
happy to explain why I like ballet a whole lot!).
It's odd that we don't have a one-word adverb that we can use in a sentence like this. Theoretically, we
should be able to say ‘I like ballet much’, but we can't even do that idiomatically. We have to say ‘I like ballet very
much’, unless we use the jocular ‘muchly’, which started out as quite a respectable adverb.
‘A lot’ in its adverbial use is fairly recent in English, dating from the mid-19th century. But it has really caught
on. But all the same, you may say, it should still be spelled as two words. It's not as if anyone can think of
another example in the English language where an article/determiner and its following noun became fused as
the two became perceived as one lexical unit.
Oh. Wait. Anyone. Another. You see, there's nothing to stop us doing this when it makes sense to do so.
Oops. ‘Nothing’. There's another one. Let me make myself clear. Yes, the correct way to spell ‘a lot’ is – at the
moment – as two words, not as one. But what determines that it is the correct spelling? Convention, that is all.
Considering ‘alot’ as the shibboleth that identifies the illiterate, ridiculing people who misspell it, and making false
analogies involving cantaloupes and pork chops says more about the ridiculers than about the ridiculed. There
are better ways to teach correct spelling. And by the way, the verb meaning ‘to apportion’ is spelled ‘allot’. For
the etymology of ‘cantaloupe’, and a tasty cantaloupe cake recipe, click here.
Give us today our daily wench
I have discussed ‘a lot’ and the interesting story of ‘dance’,
but what about ‘lady’, a word obviously close to my heart? It
is derived from an Old English word, hlæfdie, a compound
of hlæf (bread) and dige (kneader). From its earliest
appearance in written records, this ‘bread kneader’ was the
woman in charge of a household. The second element of
the compound, dige, is related to the word that gave us
‘dairy’. The first element, hlæf, evolved into ‘loaf’, its place
as the collective word for the staff of life usurped by ‘bread’,
which started out meaning ‘a piece of food’. ‘Give us today
our daily loaf’ and ‘I am the loaf of life,’ said Anglo-Saxon
Gospel translations.
When I first started my word history segments on CBC
Radio, there was much agonizing among the producers as
to whether it was ok for the host to call me ‘the Word Lady’
or if in fact this was sexist. Should it be ‘Word Woman’
instead, they wondered (well, some of them suggested that
‘Word Wench’ had a nice ring to it). To me, ‘Word Woman’ had connotations of
superhero(ine?) about it. After looking into it, I decided that any hesitation I had about
‘Word Lady’ was due to its association in my mind with compounds like ‘tea lady’ and ‘cleaning lady’, and that I
should just get over myself. So, Word Lady I am. If ‘lady’ is good enough for the Virgin Mary, it should be good
enough for me, I figure.◄
21. 21 eSense 44 | January-March | 2017
Hi Society
Information-packed CAT tools workshop
Where do translation tools come from? Where are they going to? Which is the best tool today? What are the
benefits of using them? Just some of the questions raised – and answered – by Ellen Singer and Enrico Koper
at the recent information-packed workshop on computer-assisted translation (CAT) tools for seasoned and
novice users alike. Together Ellen and Enrico brought over 20 years’ experience running a technical translation
agency to the day, augmented by questions and asides from SENSE members experienced in using various
CAT tools. Having worked with CAT tools from their earliest origins, Ellen presented a short history of their
development – think of a layered wedding cake! And did you know that Déjà Vu developers set up MemoQ?
(Thanks to Jenny Zonneveld for that
titbit.) This was followed by an overview
and comparison of the leading CAT tools,
before Enrico went on to explain their
salient features using memoQ as an
illustrative working environment. For
example, he talked us through how to set
up a project in MemoQ, explaining the
most important options. We now know our
term bases from our translation
memories, and have been introduced to
various features to increase our
translation efficiency, from alignment of
previously translated files, to concordance
to check a term and the way it has
previously been translated.
– Vanessa Goad (pictured top left)◄
On the day, the trains ran, the sun shone and
the translators in attendance at the CAT tools
workshop enjoyed a tasty lunch buffet plus,
afterwards, a gezellig gathering in the bar
Everything you ever want to know about tax
(but were afraid to ask)
We're reviving an old SENSE tradition. Our more venerable members speak fondly of the time when sessions of
advice on Dutch taxes were a regular feature of the SENSE calendar, and it's high time to reinstate this service
to members. Useful in the long term, but also in the short term (your 2016 tax return...). Most people who live,
work and pay tax in the Netherlands should benefit from this seminar, whether they are just starting out, thinking
of starting out, or well-established in business (but still a bit vague on some fiscal intricacies). It will, of course,
appeal particularly to self-employed members, who form over two-thirds of the SENSE membership.
An awful lot is required of freelancers. To run our own businesses we need to understand the often complex
Dutch tax laws, and maintain an impeccable administration. And the rules keep changing, so it can be hard to
keep up-to-date. On the other hand, there are significant incentives in the form of deductions and rebates and
these should be exploited to the full. It's hard enough for Dutch people and seasoned expats to grasp every
aspect of the tax system, but if you're fairly new to the country, the Dutch fiscal jargon can be daunting.We are
fortunate to have found AAme Adviseurs to present this seminar, which will cover all relevant aspects of Dutch
taxes and administration. Mark your diaries, the seminar is on 2 March 2017. Registration is open now.
– Robert Coupe◄
UniSIG puts plagiarism on the agenda
SENSE members are welcome to join UniSIG in Utrecht on Friday, 10 March 2017 when Dr Annemieke Meijer,
coordinator of University College Utrecht’s Writing and Skills Centre, will give a talk on ‘Understanding, detecting
and dealing with plagiarism’, to lead into a discussion on our experience of plagiarism in the texts we edit (or
translate) and how we have dealt with it.◄
22. HI SOCIETY
22 eSense 44 | January-March | 2017
Engaging speakers at SENSE Educators meeting
At the last meeting of SENSE Ed, we devoted the entire afternoon to an exploration of the theme ‘Motivating and
inspiring your students’ under the guidance of two highly informed and engaging speakers. First, John Linnegar
gave us all an introduction to the correspondence-consistency-correctness (CCC) model for error detection and
correction developed by Jan Renkema of the University of Tilburg. John showed us how its streamlined top-
down approach could be used to teach students how to self-correct their writing in a self-empowering way. To
become acquainted with the way the CCC Model works, we analyzed a brief text. The discussion was very
stimulating and gave many of us fresh ideas on how to approach the task of teaching writing.
Laetis Kuipers, John Linnegar and
David Barick
After the break, Laetis Kuipers, a
freelance translator and university
trainer of scientific and business
English, talked about motivating and
inspiring students. Her presentation
was arranged around the following
four themes: Responsibility,
Welcome, Unorthodox, and Keep
Calm and Stay Strict. Laetis
stressed that she considered her message a simple one, but the discussion of each point demonstrated how
many different shapes an essentially simple principle can assume. We shared our experiences with students in
various contexts, laughed a lot and learned a lot. At the end of the session, Laetis shared valuable online
resources for English-language teaching that were new to many of us. Members will find the list on the last page
of Laetis’s presentation. Her presentation and the full report of this meeting are both available for members on
the forum.
– David Barick◄
Translating tricky intonation in Utrecht
The Utrecht Translation Group recently focused on ‘the little words that oil sentences in Dutch’, as one
participant put it – specifically, the words hoor, wel, even and nou. Helene Reid had prepared about a page of
example sentences per tricky word.
As expected from tricky words, translating them was not always easy. Some examples were fairly
straightforward, such as ‘Het was een goed gesprek, hoor’ or ‘Heb je even?’ (‘It was a good conversation,
actually’ and ‘Do you have a minute?’) Others were easy to understand but difficult to translate with a modicum
of grace. How do you translate the nuanced differences between ‘Doe de deur dicht’, ‘Doe even de deur dicht’
and ‘Doe jij even de deur dicht?’ (variations of ‘please shut the door’). Dialect also came into play. ‘Ik lag net
goed en wel in bed’ means that someone had just settled into bed when something unexpected happened, but
whether you’d say ‘I’d just hit the sack’ or ‘I was just tucked up nicely in bed’ would surely depend on where
you’re from. Some phrases stumped even seasoned translators – what does ‘Laten we wel wezen’ even mean?
And what do you mean there’s no sense of ‘already’ in ‘Heb je de vaat nu al gedaan?’ And how can you ever be
sure if something’s meant kindly or with extreme sarcasm? If this makes you worry you’re never really going to
grasp all the nuances of Dutch, don’t. Because
yes, that’s probably true, but speakers of Dutch
don’t always agree on what these phrases mean,
either. Does ‘Het was me het weertje wel’ always
imply the weather was unexpectedly bad, or could
it also mean it was unexpectedly good? The votes
are still out, and both camps think they’re right.
The main conclusion, apart from ‘I’m glad I don’t
come across these words in the texts I translate’
was definitely ‘It all depends on the intonation. If
you haven’t heard someone say it out loud, you
have no idea what it means.’
Our next meeting is on 8 March 2017.
– Maartje Gorte◄
Translator/copywriter Maartje Gorte plays a mean bass for
the heavy metal band Alarion
23. HI SOCIETY
23 eSense 44 | January-March | 2017
Amsterdam by light
About a dozen SENSE members, including Hans van
Bemmelen, Francis Cox, Frans Kooymans, Marijke
van Hoeve, Susan Hunt, Iris Maher, Enid Tomkinson
and Jenny Zonneveld plus a few of their friends and
partners thoroughly enjoyed the bright sights in the
Amsterdam Light Festival.
Initiated in 2016 by Jenny, the fun event seems
destined to become a new and worthy fixture on the
annual social calendar. After the boat trip, many in the
group rounded off the occasion with a pizza. Susan
Hunt (bottom right) reports, ‘It was a lovely evening
with friends and colleagues enjoying the lights from
the comfort of a well-heated canal cruiser.’◄
Bright talk in dark kroeg
Caught in the act of having a good time, this bunch of
SENSE members (below) were as bright and sharp-
witted as ever, bingeing on shop talk in English at a
recent meeting of SIG Far North. The siglets were
gathered in their favourite kroeg, Café de Oude Wacht
in Groningen.
Once a waiting room for bus passengers (the
bus terminal used to be just outside), the place
was turned into a typically Dutch ‘brown café’
by Freddy Heineken in 1955. Pictured (l-r):
Kendra Hare (introducee), Ann Scholten,
Jackie Senior, Gini Werner, Diane Black and
Kate McIntyre. Tori Kelly turned up after this
shot was snapped by a passing waiter, and
cooked up some chuckles for the group with
her tasty menu for job-hunting success.◄
Look Ma, no fear!
On vacation in Galle Fort in Sri Lanka, Anne
Hodgkinson (below) had an exotic encounter.
Anne noticed people standing in line to ‘have a
hug’ with a python and wondered why the line was
almost all men (could a snake be that heavy or are most women that scared of snakes?). But, Anne says, ‘It
looked like great fun and so I decided to go for it. The
snake was a bit heavy but nothing impossible. The most
remarkable thing was how cool it was. I’d thought that
cold-blooded snakes would join the ambient temperature
and it was around 30◦
C in the shade that day, so a cold
snake felt almost
refreshing.’◄
Have you had an exotic
encounter you’d like to
share with your peers?
Send the evidence to
esense@sense-online.nl
24. HI SOCIETY
24 eSense 44 | January-March | 2017
Members on the march
The massive global protest against a certain newly elected president drew several members of SENSE to the
Womens March in Amsterdam on 21 January 2017. Our colleagues were among the 4,500 protesters who
marched across Museumplein to rally
in front of the American Consulate.
Among the Amsterdammers
present were Ashley Cowles (right)
and Martha Hawley (left).
As the co-organizer and
spokesperson for the event, Ashley
often found her face splashed across
social media sites and the pages of
the national press in the days prior to
the march – a slightly discomforting
experience for a self-proclaimed
introvert.
As she said on Facebook, ‘Another
day, another press interview. Introvert
me is confused as to why this couldn't
just happen over the phone.’
All the way up from the deep south
(Maastricht) came Cecilia Willems
(black beret) and all the way down
from the far north came Erin Goedhart-
Stallings (pink hat) and Kate McIntyre
(black hat) (from Sappemeer and Groningen, respectively).
Kate says, ‘The Womens March in Amsterdam was a great experience, peaceful and full of
camaraderie. The crowd was far bigger than expected and the weather was so lovely I think I
might be sunburnt (cold toes though). Lots of kids and young people. Couples of every stripe. Lots
of men as well. All were welcome.
‘A question we got on the train on the way down to Amsterdam was, “But why bother now
when it won't make a difference?” It's a theme I'm seeing a lot in negative comments on news
articles, as if protest is only worthwhile as a threat or a power play. My answer is that I needed to
send a message to the people in the US who are scared and angry, that they are not alone. I
wanted to show that the basic values that seem to have been burnt on a pyre in this American
election – values like kindness, compassion, respect and rationality – still matter to me and, from
the footage I'm seeing, still matter to a lot of other people too.’
Neither the Amsterdam event nor any of the other marches held around the
world escaped the notice of other SENSE members as well. For instance,
Jonathon Ellis started a thread called Signs and Tweets on the SENSE
forum, where he posted a string of witty slogans created by protesters.
Among the funniest were ‘Super Callous Fragile Ego, Trump You Are
Atrocious’, (on needlepoint) ‘I Made This So I Could Stab Something 35,000
Times’ and ‘There Will Be Hell Toupée’. But our favourite must be this one
pictured here. No, the holder of the sign is not a SENSE member, but
whoever this anonymous protester is, chances are she is a professional
language worker.◄
26. FROM THE EC
26 eSense 44 | January-March | 2017
So long, farewell, adieu…
... en tot ziens. With their tenure ending at the Annual General Meeting in
March, Curtis Barrett, Wil van Maarschalkerweerd and Frans Kooymans
look back on their time serving on the Executive Committee of SENSE
When you look back on your time on the EC, what memory will spring to mind first?
Curtis Barrett (outgoing Programme Secretary): I’d say the 2015 Summer Social in
Rhijnauwen. The food and weather were perfect, and I met many members for the first time. I
have very fond memories of that day.
Wil van Maarschalkerweerd (outgoing Secretary): First, the EC team building day. What a
great time we had, giving each other real feedback! Second, standing my ground and touching
the sore spot when I felt EC members were not responding to each other in a fair way.
Frans Kooymans (outgoing Treasurer): Remaining cool and rational during a stressful period,
when friction arose in relation to website strategy.
What did you like the most or the least about your tenure?
Wil: Drawing up agendas and writing minutes is part of the job of secretary, of course. And I
like that. What I liked the least is dealing with uploading documents to the site. This technology
and I have not become good friends yet.
Curtis: Serving during the Society’s 25th
anniversary was special, as I was able to look back on
the past quarter-century and take an active role in helping shape the next 25 years.
Frans: I liked simply ensuring that the finances of SENSE are in good order. And keeping the
books as simple as possible, so that it is easy for a non-accountant to take over. I’ve never been very keen on
the meetings, but you can’t get around that if you want to have your say on SENSE strategy.
Would you join the EC again?
Curtis: I’d be honoured to serve again.
Frans: This has been my second term as treasurer, and enough is enough.
Wil: I don’t think so because I intend doing less volunteer work. Also, I discovered that being a busy interpreter,
out of the office for many hours at a stretch, and being SENSE secretary isn’t always a good combination.
Anything else you’d care to mention?
Frans: The treasury position is rewarding. Close to the action, close to many members. And I’ve met great
people, on and off the EC.
Wil: Being the secretary keeps you on top of things, you’re a spider in the web. And it’s best if the spider is often
present in his or her web to deal with all the SENSE topics that come up at short notice.
Curtis: I want to thank all those who’ve been so supportive in the past three
years. When I first joined SENSE, it was just another professional society, but
over the years it’s grown to mean so much more than that to me.◄
SENSE members, watch out for the AGM Bulletin, coming your way soon with information
about this year's meeting and background on the new members of the EC. Mark the date in
your diary: Saturday 25 March. This year’s meeting promises to be super-interesting as
SENSE Chair Jenny Zonneveld will be revealing current EC strategy for developing the
Society in the coming years. Be sure to be there to have your say!
