Wife suffering from "empty nest" syndrome!

[Cow Poke]

Oh Jesse, you are the sweetest thing I have ever come across!!!!!

[Xru]

[lao tzu]

Oh Jesse, you are the sweetest thing I have ever come across!!!!!

I'm great with omelets, too.

[Xru]

Ya CP . . . I know. I'm not talking to LT for a day or two!

[Xru]

Oh Jesse, you are the sweetest thing I have ever come across!!!!!

[Cow Poke]

It's always been "one of those things" with me that, if somebody is really smart, you'd THINK they'd be smart enough to communicate in a manner which would effectively transfer their intended message to their target audience.

I mean, for Cryin' out Loud, even JUNE CLEAVER can speak JIVE!

[Astra49]

Boys! boys!...... I was being facetious!!!!!

[Cybelle Hawke]

On a side note, my wife works in the world of Academia - Texas A&M University - amongst a bunch of really highly educated people. She is constantly amazed at their inability to communicate with their direct reports. It's like they speak EduSpeak or something, and they get frustrated because nobody understands them. At the same time, she has to edit a lot of what they say because she does the department's newsletter. She is constantly having to correct their grammar and try to make their run-on sentences "make sense".

It's always been "one of those things" with me that, if somebody is really smart, you'd THINK they'd be smart enough to communicate in a manner which would effectively transfer their intended message to their target audience.

Oh I recognize this sooooo much; although I must admit I make good money out of it. My bureau specializes in communication - and I do indoor company training for young/recently university-degreed executives who are hired to advise their board but whose memo´s - according to themselves - are not taken seriously! The main problem is that they miss the ability to transform their (9 out of 10 brilliant) ideas into an advise which is considered valuable by their superiors.

[Cow Poke]

Oh I recognize this sooooo much; although I must admit I make good money out of it. My bureau specializes in communication - and I do indoor company training for young/recently university-degreed executives who are hired to advise their board but whose memo´s - according to themselves - are not taken seriously! The main problem is that they miss the ability to transform their (9 out of 10 brilliant) ideas into an advise which is considered valuable by their superiors.

Exactly. I think, sometimes, some of these guys get educated way beyond their intelligence.

Then they feel like they have to walk around using big words, or typing memos that sound like they were written by lawyers.

I have been in the oil and gas industry for the past 12 years, and I must say, our "big boss" was REALLY GREAT at communicating with "the guys in the field". He spoke clearly (in emails) and never handled more than one or two topics in an email or conversation, and used bullet lists to enumerate ...well.... lists.

We had ANOTHER guy in the company, an exec VP, who would stand in front of the group and seem to think up the longest most complex drawn-out way to say anything or to answer any question. I could see eyes rolling and puzzled looks on they guys' faces. Fortunately, I usually had an opportunity, as Communications guy, to "close the meeting", during which I would summarize and assign action items.

[Cybelle Hawke]

Exactly. I think, sometimes, some of these guys get educated way beyond their intelligence.

Then they feel like they have to walk around using big words, or typing memos that sound like they were written by lawyers.

I have been in the oil and gas industry for the past 12 years, and I must say, our "big boss" was REALLY GREAT at communicating with "the guys in the field". He spoke clearly (in emails) and never handled more than one or two topics in an email or conversation, and used bullet lists to enumerate ...well.... lists.

We had ANOTHER guy in the company, an exec VP, who would stand in front of the group and seem to think up the longest most complex drawn-out way to say anything or to answer any question. I could see eyes rolling and puzzled looks on they guys' faces. Fortunately, I usually had an opportunity, as Communications guy, to "close the meeting", during which I would summarize and assign action items.

[and then, the exec VP would secretly wonder: wow! did I just say all that??]

[Cow Poke]

[and then, the exec VP would secretly wonder: wow! did I just say all that??]

OK, now you done it!!!! One of our mission Churches was a Hispanic one. Rod, their Pastor, asked me to preach for them one Sunday, as their preaching service happens during our Sunday School time. I was, ONCE AGAIN, amazed at the translation process, as I would say something like, "Jesus went to the tomb..." and Rod, supposedly translating , would say something in Spanish that sounded like it lasted for 45 seconds, or I would say "And Mary pretty much scolded Jesus for not coming sooner, which is why Lazarus died". And Rod would say something that was only three syllables.

At ONE point, however, as I'm preaching, I dramatically recount Jesus' words ... LAZARUS, COME FORTH!!!!!... and Rod takes the same posture and gesture and shouts, "LAZARUS, COME FORTH!!!!!"

I looked at him and said, "OK, something's wrong -- I UNDERSTOOD that!" We both laughed, as he had gotten so caught up in the preaching he forgot he was translating. Then I went back to preaching.

[Cybelle Hawke]

OK, now you done it!!!!

Oh translating is a world apart.... a close friend of mine, who posts here under the name Hannah, is a interpreter and she works now full time at the European Parliament in Bruxelles but before that, she was working for a translation agency who also offered services in interpreting. She once told me that she had to fill in for a collegue who was supposed to acompany a Dutch businessman while addressing two Englishmen for his products.

The emergency did not allow much preparation and she just had time to grap her briefcase and run in order not to be late.

But the traffic was not cooperating and she arrived a littlebit late. The gentlemen had meanwhile gone to the meeting room and were comfortably seated with coffee awaiting her arrival (according to the secretary). When Hannah entered the room however, she noticed that the 2 Englishmen were looking puzzled and tried very hard not to burst our in laughter which, in turn, seemed to confuse the Dutch man.....

The Dutch businessman had taken the liberty to start translating the little introduction speech he had prepared himself.

He had wanted to say: we, entrepreneurs, have to be creative and smart when it comes to costsaving and efficiency, and there is much which can be accomplished in the mere packaging without offending its content.

Instead he said: we, undertakers, must be creative and smart ..... .... ..... ..... ..... its content.




I will explain if not you miss the funny part.
For a Dutch person, the word 'undertaker' would seem the perfect translation as its Dutch equivalent: 'ONDER- NEMER' would literally translate in English 'UNDER - TAKER'. This man obviously had no idea what the word undertaker really meant and that the accurate translation of what he wanted to say would be 'entrepreneur'.

It is a funny story in Dutch. I hope you can appreciate it in English as much.

And I will not even begin to tell you about the hopeless blunders I have made in Portugese.... it is almost 15 years ago when I came to Rio but my husband STILL talks about it.... Wrongly translated, wrongly pronounced (you think you say threw and your accent makes it sound like screw.... oh I could blog for ages about this)

Anyway, I think that people who do their best to express themselves in another language should be respected as much as they are laughed at!

[Cow Poke]

Ah yes! Funny stuff like that happens.

But this Pastor friend of mine, when he is translating my preaching, is actually translating from his THIRD language (English) to his SECOND language (Spanish) because his FIRST language is Portuguese. As you are probably aware, there are similarities between Spanish and Portuguese, but what complicates it even further is that, in Texas, we don't speak SPAIN Spanish (Castellano), but "TexMex" Spanish.

So, maybe Rod was actually translating from his FOURTH language into his THIRD. One thing that was funny, though, was, at some point in my sermon, I was giving an illustration about a bird.... When it was Rod's turn to translate, he said "passaro" (Portuguese) instead of "pajoro" (Mex Spanish), then realized what he had done, and kinda froze, stage whispering to his wife "what's a bird?"

You had to been there! It was hilarious.

[Cybelle Hawke]

Oh yes there is Spanish and Spanish.... also the belgian Dutch, Flemish, is not the same as the Dutch Dutch...

Also my former american boss, while I worked in France.... was/is married to an British lady and he told me on various occasions that her parents and his´ constantly would ask him or his wife: what are they saying?
I once received a CD ROM with a fairytale on it, and the funny thing was you could chose from a huge amount of various languages. I was surprised to see that there was British English and American English. I listened to both versions and it was quite different in wording/phrasing

But please tell me, I am really curious. what is TexMex Spanish??? Is it a mix of American and Spanish like for instance Creol and/or Papiamentu is?

[themuzicman]

I suppose my wife and I are fortunate in the sense that we have 6 kids, all two years apart, so we get to experience 5 kids leaving before watching the last one fly the nest. The first one was kinda hard, and we've kinda become more used to the idea that our kids are going to be OK on their own.

The youngest is 17, now, and has just over a year of HS left before college. If she follows the rest of them, she'll be moving out shortly after graduation, too.

To us, I think the key has been to stay in touch with them. We use social media and set special dates to get together.

But, like I said, I think we're lucky that the first departure wasn't the last....

BTW, we do have a cat that my wife loves to have around the house.