Why am I here? No, today is not an existential discourse on the mysteries of life. It is instead, why am I here in Italy. Or more to the point, why would the Italians invite me here? I think the simplest explanation revolves around language. Italian may very well be the language of love, il mio amore, but English is considered the lingua franca of science. Scientists need a universal language to communicate results to one another. Early on it was Greek or Latin, but German became increasingly dominant through the early 20th century. Since the end of World War II, English has taken over as International the language of science. A good thing too for us linguistically challenged Americans. But being linguistically challenged has likely played a big part in my being here. Students studying to be scientists here in Italy are expected to be able to read, write, and speak in English. And yet, as I have mentioned, that Novara, and the Universita degli Studi del Piemonte Orientale where I am visiting, are a bit off the beaten track and very little English is spoken around here. So from the perspective of “use it or lose it”, it is very easy for students to regress in their English speaking, putting them somewhat at a disadvantage when their work puts them on the International stage. So what better way to push the English envelop around here than to drop in a linguistically illiterate American and create windows of opportunity for students to interact with the uomo from Can-tucky in English. Now it should be pointed out that most scientific writing is very proper, and well yes, pretty boring. This ends up exposing the Italians students to let’s call it the King’s English. But come on now, how many of us use the King’s English in our every day speech? Having grown up on the mean streets of Lauderdale Minnesota and then been transplanted to Iowa and Texas before finally ending up in Can-tucky, I have a whole host of colloquialisms that you would never get exposed to in basic language training and by reading the scientific literature. That is until recently. Scientific journals have begun pimping their wares by having short commentaries on important papers within each issue. And when asked to write one of these commentaries the editors ask for a short eye-catching title of 3 to 4 words. Coming up with these cute little titles can often be as challenging as writing the commentaries themselves. Anyway, a year or so I was asked to write a commentary for a paper on the disease I work on which is called Diamond Blackfan Anemia. I entitled the commentary “Drawing to a Diamond Flush”; stretching the word limit, I know. This title was a reflection of my misspent youth, where we spent all of our time playing poker rather than doing schoolwork. I thought it was an apt analogy as the paper filled in in some important details regarding the molecular basis for this disease, and ended the commentary by further extending the analogy by saying that the paper was not a royal flush in terms of it being a slam dunk (piling colloquialism on colloquialism) in terms of completing our knowledge of the disease. I guess I never thought of how this commentary might play out elsewhere in the world until the last time I was here in Italy. When the commentary was brought up, they had to admit they hadn’t a clue what I was talking about. While they knew poker of course, they had a completely different name for a flush and didn’t draw the connection I made to poker. I can’t imagine any form of translation would resolve issues like this unless it were book dedicated to translating poker terminology. My presentations are like my writing in terms of being loaded with every day speech and filled with colloquialisms. Having the audience there in front of me allows me to tell from their blanks stares that something I’ve just said regarding, for example, “the canary in a coalmine”, may not have gotten through. So I back up, flap my arms, sniff, and drop over dead and further elaborate on the meaning of the phrase. In this way, the students are seeing quite a different side of the English language and thus broadening their exposure. Anyway, I’m not sure if scientific publishers have picked up on the problem they’ve created with their new publishing gimmicks, or if they even care. But as long as they keep this trend going, I’m hoping there will be a spot for this linguistically challenged American in Italy. For those of you that prefer something visual to my ramblings I am attaching a few pictures from an evening wandering through the centro cittá of Novara, including the gates to the city. There is also a picture from this morning where ragazzi on a field trip were passing by the entrance to my hotel.
Posted on: Thu, 12 Sep 2013 10:51:18 +0000
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