I am reading this interesting essay by PhD John Trados, Evolution of Translators: Breeds and Behaviour (University of Las Casillas, 2008) about the behaviour of translators as a species. It's mainly about a rare species of translators, the Free-Range Translators: unlike other translators, what I understood so far from the book is that the Free-Range translator is wild, untamed, creative. As a species, it has a hard time adapting to dull translations, of which it cannot feed: modern society has thus pushed it on the verge of extinction.
The first part of the book draws heavily on the founding essay of Translator Ethology, titled A Study on Species or The Behavioural Social Features of the Male and Female Free-Range Guinea Translator (Charles Windar, Sootwrist&Co, London 1887). To give you an idea of the topic, I am going to paste an extract from the first chapter. In future posts, we will have the chance to discuss issues and studies on the present-day life of Free Range translators.
(from chapter 1) Is the Guinea Free Range Translator a mammal?
Although there are alleged witnesses who arguably claimed having seen a Guinea translator laying eggs, there is no doubt that all translators are mammals.
Such myth stems out of the peculiar characteristics of free-range translators in comparison to their more commonly seen species of domestic translators, which, through generations of controlled breeding, have become certainly more homogenic.
The Bored BA and the Virginia Pygmy translator, for instance, are practically the same species: as we all know, they are both PC-alienated species, live alone in small, white flats, feed regularly on fruit and chocolate mousse, have never purchased, let alone consumed, more than three 33cc beer-bottles within the same night and mate once a year after the last deadline of May.
Bored BAs do not wear glasses and are less tame than Virginia Pygmy translators, who are are generally distinguishable for being mainly female diligent geeks during University (Language Faculty average male-female ratio: 1:4), lacking any creativity whatsoever, and taking pleasure is unholy and repulsive activities such as spell-checking a document, not save it, and go again through it manually in order to see if they can beat the spellcheck; other recreational activities include handing in on Friday a batch due Monday and assaulting question-posters on Proz when the reason for notawarding the Pygmy's suggested translation 4 points is weak. Pygmys attack in spinsters of three-to-five females.
Virginia Pygmy translators feel threatened by any assignment related to literature, as their digestive system has evolved to digest unfathomably large batches of printer-maintenance handbooks, html catalogues of gadgets for microfibronizers, industrial oil-pump bolt-lubrication do's and dont's and the like. If presented with a pun in an informal dialogue from a fiction series, the specimen perceives the distant call of the wild, begins to perspire, the iris shrinks, heartbeat raises, lips tighten and the typical red crest on his head stiffens: the Pygmy starts an anxious browse for quotes, references, forum posts. After approximately 30 minutes, body function begin to revert to standard values. Mathematician Fabrizio d'Addani-Roncofiore has demonstrated, in the model bearing his name, how the translated version of the pun by a Virginia Pygmy translator invariably corresponds to the least witty option of adaptation available among all options among all modern Indo-European languages.
Virginia Pygmy are potentially attractive females but only suceed in winning the attentions of a male translator, as their high, hysteric pitch of laughter and their capability of finding a dull party extremely entertaining and memorable are, to the male translator, signals the first, of potential frigidity and the second, of not having a life. In fact, animal instict is once again correct, although incapable of perceiving the deeply sexually frustrated and thus perverted mind of the eye-glassed diligent Virginia Pygmy Translator sophomores, of which, however, three out of five are die without having ever mated (hence the term spinster for a pack of female Virginia Pygmys).
The male Virginia Pygmy is a female Virginia Pygmy provided with a differing genital apparatus, which allows mating with the females of his species. Males are characterized by obsessive hygiene and short, neat fur, live in sads of two-to-three, exchanging new emoticons and performing sporadic solitary sexual activities deprived of any passion whatsoever. They represent the least-studied species in the history of science, as scientists who attempted to study them all lost interest within the first three hours of on-field research. Virginia Pygmy male translators represent the perfect host for the pornularis intrabatchensis, of which they are immune carriers, and which represents the first cause of death in translators, who, attacked by this parasite, are neurally compelled to masturbate every 1300-2000 words.
Specimens who are infected by pornularis intrabatchensis, if no therapy is undertaken in the first six months, all inevitably die within 3 years from contracting the infection, and can be healed only by the physical presence of an adult PM within a 10 feet radius from the infected specimen.
No comments:
Post a Comment