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Get Me a Good Translation Service

By C.L. Beck 

Image © RosettaTranslation.com

Recently, I ran across a website for a translation service in London. I was delighted, thinking there was help in sight for Russ and me, since we sometimes have an inability to communicate.

Let me rephrase that. One of the biggest issues between Russ and me is his inability to communicate. Like almost all women of the world, I am well-versed at saying what I mean without actually coming out and expressing it, because men are supposed to get what we mean and not what we say, anyway.

Not that Russ would agree, but hey, what does he know?

I used to think it was because he's deaf in one ear and can't hear out the other that our verbal exchanges became confusing. Now I find that his texts are just as bad.

Not long ago, in response to a text I sent telling him what I was fixing for supper, I got the following reply: "You R sopping good."

I glared at my cell. What kind of answer was that? And why insult me when all I'd said was that I was fixing his favorite meal? My fingers fairly flew over the keyboard with my stinging reply.

Oh, all right, I'll tell the truth. It took me five minutes to type it, 'cause I suck ... er, I mean stink ... at texting. My reply said, "Sopping good!!??"

A few seconds later, I heard my cell ding -- as opposed to what phones used to do, which was ring -- and I checked the message.

He'd texted, "R U calling me sopping for some reason? What did I do now?"

Naturally, anyone can see that this error in communication did not come from my sharp mind but from Russ's cluttered brain.

That night, we talked and cleared it up. It turned out he'd typed, "You R sooooo good" and the auto text feature on his Android had substituted the word "sopping" for "sooooo."

Still, I think that being in the mental health/counseling field, Russ must accept Sigmund Freud's postulate that nothing happens by accident. Subconsciously, his brain went with sopping for a reason.

I must admit that a short time later, the tables were turned. I'd planned to meet friends for lunch, where we could converse, discuss, talk, gab, and parley to our hearts' content. Yup, obviously a group of all women!

But before I go any farther, let me say this about that. It's my considered opinion that many men don't have good communication skills. (Of course, this does not include faithful male readers at this blog!) However, men may know how to parley. My highly educated appraisal on that issue is based on the movie, Pirates of the Caribbean.

Hmmm, Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean. Talk about needing a translation service! That man talked like he had cotton in his mouth through the whole movie ... and in all 325 sequels!

Oh, I'm sorry. I digress.

So, according to Johnny Depp -- and this is assuming I understood him correctly through his slurring and mumbling -- pirates know how to parley.  And since most pirates are men, that means parleying is the only form of conversation they employ ... while sitting around a table, with swords in their teeth and rum on their breath.

Sooooo, (please note that my computer has more sense than any cell and did not substitute "sopping" for "sooooo,") back to the story about meeting friends. I texted them and said I could come on the specified day, "If we can meet in Nephi for lunch."

Which my cell changed to -- while I wasn't looking, mind you -- "If we can meet in Nephritis for lunch."

Just great. My friends thought I wanted to meet in kidney disease for lunch.

Well, all I can say is that cell phones obviously need a good translation service to get it right. Either that or they need to be created by women, who know from the day they're born how to converse, discuss, talk, gab, and parley -- even without swords in their teeth and rum on their breath.

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"Get Me a Good Translation Service" © C.L. Beck;  image © RosettaTranslation.com
Tags: translation service, Android