The State We’re In: Language

Should Mallorcan businesses get it right? Get English right? It was once put to me that it didn’t matter and that mangled English was just all part of the charm. Possibly so, but possibly it is also a case of being lazy or of mistake reinforcing mistake.

There are any number of English speakers knocking around who might help a restaurant, a shop, an event, an estate agency from making a language gaffe. Are any ever asked to give a menu, some instructions, a sign the once-over, just to be sure? Some are, but there are plenty of businesses who still manage to mangle English. All part of the charm perhaps, but there is charm and there is being professional.

Recently, we had the priceless “rules” set out by the Pollensa Music Festival, under which, among other things, it was not allowed “to enter any type of container nor devices of telephony”. We know what they were getting at, but a little bit of attention might have eliminated the potential for confusion or indeed hilarity.

There have been some wonderful mistakes that I have encountered over the years. A personal favourite remains the “flesh on the tenterhooks” of a grill restaurant. The owner said that the printers who had been responsible for the translation had insisted that they could do the English correctly. Which may be part of the problem; that of non-native speakers who fall into the language trap.

“Flesh on the tenterhooks” was, one presumed, meant to be something along the lines of tender meat, but it came out as sounding like an act of torture by the Inquisition. Tenterhooks, for the record, have nothing to do with cooking and everything to do with stretching cloth.

Making a complete balls-up has arguably been made more likely thanks to the Google translator and other machine translation systems. And when it comes to idioms and slang terms, of which there are an awful lot in English, such systems are almost completely useless.

Some mistakes, however, just keep on getting repeated. And a prime example is the “state agency”; not an agency of the state, but an estate agency. You can find many states that appear to be being traded by state agencies which should in fact be estate agencies.

A new sign appeared at one estate agency the other day, replete with the same old mistake. But why does it keep being made? Has no one ever pointed the mistake out? My guess is that “state” is so common that it is thought to be correct, not least by signmakers who will insist that it is correct as they have been in this state for years.

Proper names can also be problematic. In certain cases, they always have been. In Puerto Alcúdia, the recent fire at an apartment block caused a bit of a problem as to how it should be reported. The apartments have always lacked one letter. Who originally took the “p” out of the Mississipi (sic)? The same person possibly who didn’t see the “c” in the Picadilly (sic) bar. Has anyone ever noticed the missing “n” that means that the Britania (sic) bar doesn’t rule the waves? (The missing “p” might be put down to being Spanish, but then in Spanish there would be a missing “s” as well – twice over; Picadilly and Britania are Spanish, but their markets have been British.)

Not that these probably matter. Test your average Brit tourist and, nine times out of ten, he wouldn’t know how to spell them anyway. And it’s certainly not as though the language trap doesn’t work in reverse or that borrowing from Spanish doesn’t come into play.

Pop along to your nearest state agency, or preferably estate agency, and you might find a property that takes your fancy. However, the state agent tells you that it is in need of reform. Has it been a naughty boy? Is it to have its law changed? The widespread use of reform to mean altering a building in some way isn’t, strictly speaking, correct usage. Incorrect or not, it is a good example of a word whose meaning has been borrowed from Spanish that, because of its generality, works rather better than correct English alternatives.

And the property needing reform might well be in an urbanisation, another specific adaptation from the Spanish to mean an estate, or should it be a state? Once reformed, the property may well become “perfect”, states of perfection being more widely expressed by “perfecto” Spaniards and therefore also now by English-speaking adopters.

To answer my initial question though. Tell me. Should they get it right? Go on, tell me. I command you. The abrupt, somewhat impolite use of this imperative is something else that has passed from Spanish. “Digame”. Tell me.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Language Rules: Don’t enter containers!

“All concerts will start punctually at 22:00 hours.”

So far not so bad. Bit of a problem with “22:00 hours” and the rather direct tone, which makes it sound like a police report, but then this is all part of the “rules”, as will become evident.

“The entry will only be allowed in their precinct in the rest among the pieces of the program, if there is some.”

Erm, now things get a tad awkward. We have a definite article “the entry” where a definite article is not required. We also have a “program” that can normally only be a “program” if it is American or a piece of software. We also have a totally meaningless sentence. If there is some what, exactly?

“The persons foreign to the organization can not make pictures, nor filming or enregistramens.”

Ok, so the persons are presumably in fact people, as, and again a bit like police reports, persons are not generally the correct plural form. And who are these persons? They’re foreigners. Is this right? From abroad. Tourists perhaps. Whoever they are, they “can not” where normally they “cannot” take pictures and then … then we get a bit lost. The foreigners cannot make “enregistramens”. Let me help out. It is in fact Catalan for recordings.

“It is not allowed to smoke in the inside of the courtyard of the Cloister, nor the use of ranges or similar. It is not allowed either to enter any type of container nor devices of telephony.”

Right, so I think we get the bit about not smoking, but the use of these ranges or indeed similar. Where is this all going? And then it becomes a guessing game. What containers are there in the Cloister (I assume we are talking about the Cloister)? One is not, for example, allowed to enter a rubbish container or a skip. Is this what is meant? Entering a device of telephony would be some feat. Don’t know about you, but I have never tried to physically get inside a mobile phone.

“The entry/ticket of those persons who use a non appropriate wardrobe in relation/relationship to/in the act will not be allowed.”

Hmm. So someone or some persons come along with a wardrobe that is, oh I don’t know, is it from IKEA perhaps? If it were from the grand El Corte Inglés department store would this be appropriate? The police report seems to have returned as well. Persons or persons unknown in a non appropriate (should of course be inappropriate) wardrobe and being caught in the act. Fine, it’s becoming clearer. If you’re caught in the act with your inappropriate wardrobe, then you are not allowed. Allowed to do what? Or allowed in maybe? Yep, I think it’s allowed in.

Look, I could go on with all of this, but I imagine you have got the drift by now. This mangling of the English language comes from the ominously presented “General Rules” for the Pollensa Music Festival. Actually getting to these rules is a challenge in itself. Go to the website for the festival and the home page is that from 2010, so you might be inclined to give up. But if you click English, you come to 2011 and eventually to the rules.

There are several points about all this. One is that the publicity is still so poor that they haven’t got round to changing the home page. The second is the sheer pomposity of some of these “rules”, assuming you can understand them. They just go to reinforce what I have said about the limited appeal of the festival. They are designed to deter not to attract. And thirdly, there is of course the fact that the English is total gobbledegook.

This is an international event. Allegedly. English is the usual international language. Why on earth can’t they find someone – from Britain or another English-speaking country, of whom there are many knocking around Pollensa – to spend a few minutes translating the Klingon that has been provided into English? Probably because they might have to pay someone, and they haven’t got any money. It is, however, a dreadful indictment. You can understand a restaurant getting its English cocked up (actually you can’t understand, because they could also get a native-speaker to give it the once-over), but this is a bloody music festival. Prestigious, so they say. The most prestigious in Mallorca. They’re having a laugh.

You despair, you really do despair.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.