Libertad

FRASES DE MARIO VARGAS LLOSA

MARIO VARGAS LLOSA

Escritor Peruano (1936)

“Aprender a leer es lo más importante que me ha pasado en el vida".

“Nada enriquece tanto los sentidos, la sensibilidad, los deseos humanos, como la lectura. Estoy completamente convencido de que una persona que lee, y que lee bien, disfruta muchísimo mejor de la vida, aunque también es una persona que tiene más problemas frente al mundo”.

“La incertidumbre es una margarita cuyos pétalos no se terminan jamás de deshojar”.

“Cuando la realidad se vuelve irresistible, la ficción es un refugio”.

"Se escribe para llenar vacíos, para tomarse desquites contra la realidad, contra las circunstancias".

“Depende de nosotros que la buena literatura siga existiendo, por el goce incomparable que produce, y por lo fundamental que es si queremos tener un futuro en libertad”.

LANGUAGE HOT FROM THE OVEN

Gosh, Who Talks Like That Now? Romney Does

GOFFSTOWN, N.H. — At a campaign stop in Rockford, Ill., not long ago, Mitt Romney sought to convey his feelings for his wife, Ann. “Smitten,” he said.

Not merely in love. 

“Yeah, smitten,” he said. “Mitt was smitten.” 

It was a classic Mittism, as friends and advisers call the verbal quirks of the Republican presidential candidate. In Romneyspeak, passengers do not get off airplanes, they “disembark.” People do not laugh, they “guffaw.” Criminals do not go to jail, they land in the “big house.” Insults are not hurled, “brickbats” are. 

As he seeks the office of commander in chief, Mr. Romney can sometimes seem like an editor in chief, employing a language all his own. It is polite, formal and at times anachronistic, linguistically setting apart a man who frequently struggles to sell himself to the American electorate. 

It is most pronounced when he is on the stump and off the cuff, not on the stuffy and rehearsed debate stage. But Mr. Romney offered voters a dose of it during his face-off with President Obama last week, when he coined the infelicitous phrase “binders full of women.” 

Mr. Romney’s unique style of speaking has distinguished him throughout his career, influencing the word choices of those who work with and especially for him. Should he reach the White House, friends and advisers concede, the trait could be a defining feature of his public image, as memorable as Lyndon B. Johnson’s foul-mouthed utterances or the first President Bush’s tortured syntax.

Mr. Romney, 65, has spent four decades inside the corridors of high finance and state politics, where indecorous diction and vulgarisms abound. But he has emerged as if in a rhetorical time capsule from a well-mannered era of soda fountains and AMC Ramblers, someone whose idea of swearing is to let loose with the phrase “H-E-double hockey sticks.” 

“He actually said that,” recalled Thomas Finneran, the speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives when Mr. Romney was governor. “As in, go to ‘H-E-double hockey sticks.’ I would think to myself, ‘Who talks like that?’ ” 

Mr. Romney, quite proudly. In fact, he seems puzzled by the fascination with something as instinctive (and immutable) as how he talks, as if somebody were asking how he breathes. “It’s like someone who speaks with an accent,” he said in an interview. “You don’t hear the accent.” 

His Mormon faith frowns on salty language, and so does he. A man of relentless self-discipline, he made clear to lawmakers in Boston and colleagues in business that even in matters of vocabulary, he “held himself to a high standard of behavior,” said Geoffrey Rehnert, a former executive at Bain Capital, the firm Mr. Romney started in the 1980s. Mr. Romney’s father, George, whom he idolized, shared the same style of refined and restrained speech. 

Those around him are so accustomed to his verbal tics that they describe them in shorthand. “Old-timey,” said one aide. “His 1950s language,” explained another. “The Gomer Pyle routine,” said a third. 

Asked about his boss’s word preferences, Eric Fehrnstrom, a veteran Romney adviser, responded knowingly: “You mean like ‘gosh, golly, darn’?” 

For Democratic strategists, Mr. Romney’s throwback vocabulary feeds into their portrayal of a man ill-equipped for the mores and challenges of the modern age. David Axelrod, a top adviser for an Obama campaign that has adopted “Forward” as its slogan, once quipped that Mr. Romney “must watch ‘Mad Men,’ ” the hit television show set in Manhattan in the 1960s, “and think it’s the evening news.” 

His exclamations can sound jarring to the contemporary ear — or charming, depending on whom you ask. Midway into a critique of Mr. Obama’s economic policies a few months ago, Mr. Romney declared: “They’ve scared the dickens out of banks,” he said. “They’ve scared the dickens out of insurance companies.” 

He declared, “To heck with it!” while urging reporters to use their fingers to dig into a box of pastries he was passing around on a plane. “Darn good question,” he replied to a voter in Kalamazoo, Mich., who asked how he would work with Congress if elected. (His wife also got the “darn” treatment in Michigan, when he enthused, “Gosh, darn, she is amazing!”) “Thank heavens” is another favorite.

For people used to peppering their speech with four-letter words, time with Mr. Romney can prove an exercise in self-control. A half-dozen people recalled the precise moment when they swore — almost always accidentally — in his presence. 

When Robert Travaglini, then the Democratic president of the Massachusetts State Senate, would curse in front of Mr. Romney, the governor would frown and interject, “Well, I wouldn’t choose that diction,” Mr. Travaglini recalled.

Mr. Rehnert, the former Bain executive, was mortified when a potential client he took into Mr. Romney’s office promptly dropped a string of profanities. “Mitt wanted to know what cats and dogs I was dragging in here,” Mr. Rehnert said. 

His cussing colleagues said Mr. Romney took pains not to judge them publicly. “He did not impose his language preferences on us,” Mr. Finneran said. “But I wonder if we became a little bit more restrained because we knew this about him.” 

Mr. Travaglini recalled lawmakers’ discussing how Mr. Romney “should be more in tune with the vernacular of the day and express himself more passionately.”

“But,” he added, “that’s not who he is.” 

Mr. Romney does have his own distinctly G-rated arsenal of angry expressions — “Good grief,” “flippin’,” “good heavens” and even the occasional “crap.” 

Perhaps the most intriguing of these is “grunt.” Most people just grunt. Mr. Romney, however, talks about grunting. “Grunt” he says, onomatopoetically, when annoyed with a last-minute change in his campaign schedule. 

Many of Mr. Romney’s verbal habits can sound like those of a hyper-literate graduate student who never left school. (In college, he majored in English.) He favors the gentlemanly qualifier “if you will,” which he invoked three times during a recent speech. 

On how to reduce the debt: “You have to start accumulating, if you will, reserves.” 

On speaking to a group of soldiers: “The cadets were all lined up and sitting at attention, if you will.” 

On his business background: “I’ve had the experience of working in the real world, if you will.” 

In interviews, voters expressed an equal measure of admiration for and curiosity about his quaint dialect, which many described as a conspicuous break from the normally harsh tone of politicians. 

“It’s a wonderful change,” said Irene Sperling, a retiree from Allentown, Pa. “He’s a gentleman.” 

Wendy Tonn, 63, a Romney supporter who splits her time between Michigan and Florida, said she found comfort in his vocabulary, comparing it to the simple innocence of “Leave It to Beaver.” “We are of that era, and we’d like to be returned to that kind of era,” she said. 

Even Dennis Miller, the comedian, has weighed in, suggesting that after four years of having a “hipster president” in the White House, Americans craved a “gosh president.” 

A few acquaintances have tried to drag him linguistically into the 21st century. Mr. Finneran, an admitted serial curser, said that after years of working closely with Mr. Romney, he began to fantasize about provoking him to utter a particularly crude word. 

“It got to the point where I started to think that my greatest achievement of all time would be if I somehow or other got him to say the word,” he said. 

Once, Mr. Romney seemed on the cusp of fulfilling that wish during a heated discussion. But he caught himself. “And I thought, ‘Oh, God, my closest moment ever,’ ” Mr. Finneran said. “But it’s not going to happen.” 

(Fuente: http://www.nytimes.com)

DECÁLOGO DEL TRADUCTOR

1- Los traductores NO son diccionarios. Por tanto, no conocen todas las palabras de un idioma ni son unos incompetentes por no saber cómo se dice en inglés un término técnico de aeronáutica o de física cuántica.

2- Los traductores NO suelen ser bilingües ni trilingües. Empresas y alumnos, cambiad el chip. Si queréis que las clases de inglés os las dé un nativo porque, aunque sea camionero, seguro que controla de didáctica más que un español, allá vosotros.

3- ¿Y tú qué libros traduces? NO traduzco libros. [Cara de indignación de quien formuló la pregunta]. Soy más de software, contratos, títulos universitarios, páginas web, menús de restaurantes, manuales de móviles, videojuegos, folletos turísticos...

4- Un traductor NO es un ama de casa, aunque muchos nos ocupemos también de no vivir en pocilgas, comer sano o poner lavadoras. Cuidado con el poder de las preposiciones: trabajamos desde casa y, circunstancialmente, en ella. Pero, en muchos casos, podríamos hacerlo con un equipo portátil desde la playa, un parque, el bar de la esquina o un congreso.

5- Los traductores NO son máquinas. Igual que les ocurre a los programadores, diseñadores o escritores, se cansan si pasan ocho horas delante de un ordenador. Además, les suele gustar descansar el fin de semana y, si tienen que trabajar por algún motivo, es lógico que pidan un precio más alto. Ya que lo hacen los cerrajeros, subámonos al carro.

6- Un traductor NO es tu prima la que chapurrea alemán con ayuda de Google Translate, Linguee y Wordreference (esto ya para primas que se las dan de profesionales); tampoco tu amigo cuya capacidad de hablar inglés mejora con dos copas ni ese que pone en su currículum que tiene nivel medio de cinco idiomas. 

7- Los traductores NO trabajan por amor al arte ni son robots sin corazón ni mean colonia. Comen, beben, leen, se ilusionan, viajan, tienen familia y días malos, discuten y cometen errores como la gente normal.

8-Un traductor que sepa solo un idioma además de su lengua materna NO es un bicho raro. De hecho, la mayoría solemos trabajar con uno o dos pares de idiomas. Cuánto daño ha hecho la políglota Anne Igartiburu (y las capas de Drácula de Ramón García, todo sea dicho).

9- Un traductor NO es (necesariamente) intérprete y este, a su vez, no es (necesariamente) actor de cine y teatro. Parece que a muchos les cuesta entender esta asociación de ideas. Y sí, también nos ha hecho un flaco favor Nicole Kidman.

10- La última la elegís vosotros, que no quiero que esta entrada se quede en la carpeta de Borradores eternamente.

(Fuente: http://thesecondprize.blogspot.com.ar)

Frases: Lewis Carroll

LEWIS CARROLL

1832-1898

ESCRITOR BRITÁNICO

Empieza por el principio, y continúa hasta llegar al final, allí te detienes.

Qué pobre memoria, aquella que sólo funciona hacia atrás.

Si cada cual se ocupara de lo suyo, el mundo daría las vueltas más deprisa.

Uno es tan paciente consigo mismo que nunca se irrita con la propia estupidez.

Si así fue, así pudo ser; si así fuera, así podría ser; pero como no es, no es. Eso es lógica.

Todo tiene moral, si la encuentras.

Si no sabes adónde vas, cualquier camino sirve.

La cortesía es pensar lo que dices. Ahorra mucho tiempo.

En ocasiones, he creído hasta seis cosas imposibles antes de desayunar.

No puedo volver al día de ayer. Porque ayer yo era una persona diferente.

Alguien con intelecto está perdido, a no ser que posea la energía del carácter. Cuando tenemos la lámpara de Diógenes, también debemos contar con eso.

La gente puede dudar de lo que dices, pero creerá en lo que hagas.

Él era parte de mi sueño, es cierto, pero yo era parte del suyo.

Sólo los animales más inteligentes y activos son capaces de aburrirse. Un tema para una gran poesía sería el aburrimiento de Dios en el séptimo día de la creación.

Puedes llegar a cualquier parte, siempre que andes lo suficiente.

¿Quién soy yo en este mundo? Ah, ése es el gran acertijo.

Writing tips

How to improve writing

1. Use fewer nouns and more verbs

Before	After
Operation Philadelphia can only be a success through operational staff involvement such as increased vigilance, reporting and visibility.	Operation Philadelphia will succeed only if operational staff patrol public areas, keep their eyes open and report anything unusual.

Abstract nouns such as 'involvement', 'reporting' and 'visibility' don't describe specific things, so they leave the reader with only a vague idea as to the meaning of the sentence. Replacing abstract nouns with verbs means readers, i.e. the staff, have a clearer idea what they should do.

2. Remove jargon

Before	After
Understanding how to develop strategic innovation competence is a critical success factor for companies.	Companies need to know how to innovate in order to succeed.

There's not enough difference between 'develop strategic innovation competence' and 'innovate' to justify using four words rather than one. We turned the sentence round, replacing the jargony phrases with simple verbs.

3. Be active not passive

Before	After
A mistake was made in calculating your bill.	We made a mistake in calculating your bill.

The passive voice is typically used by writers to avoid responsibility or blame. Whether used deliberately or not, it tends to be less informative than the active voice because it allows the writer to leave out a vital bit of information: who or what did it

4. Punctuate properly

Before	After
I am sorry for the poor response you received when you first complained, please be assured your concerns have been logged.	I am sorry for the poor response you received when you first complained. Please be assured your concerns have been logged.

The comma is too weak a punctuation mark in this case. The first statement makes sense on its own, in other words it is a sentence. So using a full stop, to produce two sentences rather than one, makes the ideas easier for the reader to take in.

5. Avoid dangling modifiers

Before	After
Walking along the cliffs, the waves were crashing against the rocks.	Walking along the cliffs, I saw the waves crashing against the rocks.

The modifier, the phrase before the comma, leads the reader to expect the subject of the sentence to follow, but it wasn't the waves who were walking; it was the writer. It's fairly obvious what the original means, but the reader shouldn't have to work to figure it out.

6. Build a clean sentence

Before	After
Lucozade had a spontaneous, strong and clear image, the brand however was increasingly seen as being for sickness only, for children only, for occasional use.	Although Lucozade had a strong image, it was seen primarily as a tonic for treating sick children.

When writers try to squeeze too many ideas into a sentence - without thinking them through - the construction goes awry and the point is obscured. We encourage people to plan their writing and construct sentences that get their message across clearly.

7. Read it through

Before	After
In 1851, almost one-tenth of the population lived in Paris and its suburbs. By 1911, the rest of the country was occupied by only four-fifths of the population.	Between 1851 and 1911 the proportion of the French population living in Paris and its suburbs doubled from 10% to 20%.

The original is hard enough to understand because the focus, that is the subject of the sentence, changes from 'Paris' in the first sentence to 'the rest of the country' in the second. It is even harder because it uses different fractions that require effort to compare. We used percentages instead, to make the point more clearly.

For more tips on writing, have a look at the Clarity blog.

STRONG WORDS

As words die out, we're more in danger of losing 'decent', 'duty' and 'punctuation' than 'dirty', 'stick' and 'guts'

Fascinating stuff from the University of Reading, which has announced that our oldest words have been in existence for an awfully long time, yet that "50% of the words we use today would be unrecognisable to our ancestors living 2500 years ago".

Mark Pagel, who is perhaps tellingly a professor of evolutionary biology and not of linguistics, added that "if a time-traveller came to us, and told us he wanted to go back to that period, we could arm him with the appropriate phrase book, and hopefully keep him out of trouble".

This statement, though in a sense unfalsifiable, does beg a few questions, but let's not worry about them just now. The more interesting item in the story is that, thanks to the power of a hugely brainy and fast supercomputer called ThamesBlue, the boffins now think they can tell us which words are going to be dying out soon. It makes interesting reading. Apparently, soon to be of historical interest only are words such as "dirty", "stick", "guts", "wipe", "stab", "turn" and "push".

Now, I am afraid I have not had the time or opportunity to consult the complete OED, which can tell us almost exactly how long these words, and indeed many others, have been around, but this seems like a counter-intuitive list, to put it mildly. Never mind that the list looks suspiciously like one that might be offered by a (slightly depraved) competition setter, asking us to construct a story using those words. They all have the feel of words that not only have been around for a long while, but suggest that they are very useful at what they do.

Stabbing, for instance, does not look as though it is going out of fashion, and if you can find a better word to describe plunging a knife into someone than "stab" then I take my hat off to you. And as for describing what spills out of you when you are stabbed, "guts" has it over "intestines" any day of the week. My own theory is that ThamesBlue has actually become self-aware, and, possibly as a result of indignation at being given a stupid name with a capital letter in the middle of it, has allowed its thoughts to turn in a sinister and vengeful direction. This list is simply its stream of consciousness, or perhaps a subtle warning to its operators not to push their luck.

Anyway, we can see in front of us, without a computer, which words are disappearing. "Your", "great" and "tomorrow" have all gone; they are now "ur", "gr8", and "tomoz". (Actually, I rather like "tomoz".) But I simply can't see how "dirty" will go while there is still the need for a word to describe the notion of something being in some sense unclean. Are we, in the not-too-distant future, going to start seeing "I wish my wife was as sniblig as this van" as an amusing graffito traced on the back of a dusty Transit? I think not.

No, the words that are on the way out are ones that refer to concepts which are becoming increasingly outmoded, including "integrity", "selfishness", "duty", "punctuation", and "decent".