Michael Erard - Blog

« December 2007 | Main | February 2008 »

January 2008 Archives

January 1, 2008

How To Write A Proposal

This analogy holds for proposals of many kinds.


You want to say, I have a cooked chicken, leftover rice, and soy sauce in the fridge, but I need a pot to make some fried rice, which by the way will taste so good you'll want to come over and have some -- 100 of my friends always do.

You don't want to say, I'm hungry, and I know how to cook, so give me some money for a trip to the store and I'll figure out a meal -- trust me.

January 12, 2008

NVTC, Redux

From Congressional Quarterly:

“The FBI uses a combination of Special Agents, Language Analysts, and Contract Linguists to address its foreign language translation requirements, all with tested foreign language proficiency as determined by the Interagency Language Roundtable,” FBI spokesman Richard Kolko said.

The number of FBI Special Agents who could speak at least some Arabic had increased from 29 to 46 since Sept. 11, 2001, he said. The number of Contract Linguists and Language Analysts “who meet FBI Arabic language test standards” has ballooned from 70 to 285 in the same period.

“The FBI also has access to the National Virtual Translation Center, which serves as the clearinghouse to provide timely and accurate translation of foreign intelligence for Intelligence Community agencies,” Kolko added. “Although we always look to increase the numbers through our recruiting efforts, we have the tools available to do our job.”

This would mark the first time I'd seen a spokesman talk about contract linguists (perhaps it was the first time a reporter had asked). To see in-house analysts, contractors, and the NVTC mentioned in the same rebuttal shows that the FBI is presenting its "we have the tools, stop criticizing us" message better than before.

January 23, 2008

Preacher's Slip

A good example of how it's not so much the slip itself as the context in which it's made.
In the video, the preacher says "pinch his tits" instead of "pitch his tents" (which also happens to be a perfect example of the /I/ - /E/ vowel merger -- the preacher's vowel in "tits" is the same one for his successful "tents").

He then exacerbates his problem by continuing to refer to the audience's laughter, but this one was probably unrecoverable.

YouTube is a rich source of this stuff. Who needs Kermit Schafer, really.

About January 2008

This page contains all entries posted to Michael Erard - Home in January 2008. They are listed from oldest to newest.

December 2007 is the previous archive.

February 2008 is the next archive.

Many more can be found on the main index page or by looking through the archives.

Powered by
Movable Type 4.12