The Romney campaign debacle and the evolution of a ‘shitstorm’

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© Ben Chams - Fotolia.comYou’d have to be living under a rock to have missed the secret video showing Mitt Romney wailing about how 47% of the country will never vote for him. Poor Mitt. The video made me think a lot of things about America, but in particular, it reminded me about a very special word in the English language.

Earlier this year, linguists in Germany voted the word ‘shitstorm’ one of English’s greatest gifts to the German language. As German newspaper The Local reported, “Shitstorm fills a gap in the German vocabulary that has become apparent through changes in the culture of public debate… Established German words, such as Kritik (criticism), were simply not descriptive enough.”

Apparently scheisse, German for ‘excrement,’ just didn’t have the same “oomph” when it came to talking about the European financial crisis. But as Michael Lewis noted in his 2011 Vanity Fair piece on Germany, “the German word for ‘shit’ performs a vast number of bizarre linguistic duties—for instance, a common German term of endearment was once ‘my little shit bag.'” It’s no surprise, then, that they were so taken by the word ‘shitstorm.’

So what is a shitstorm? Well, putting the literal definition aside, the jury of German linguists defined it as “a public outcry, primarily on the Internet, in which arguments mix with threats and insults to reach a critical mass, forcing a reaction.” This adds a new spin to the older Oxford Dictionaries definition, which is simply “a situation marked by violent controversy.”

Indeed, regardless of your politics, the current brouhaha surrounding the Romney campaign fits both definitions of shitstorm. It is undoubtedly a situation marked by fury and controversy (that is, Romney verbally spewing a big pile of scheisse about 47% of the electorate that even many Republicans have to disagree with). It’s also a shitstorm in the German sense, in that the Internet played a major roll in causing public outcry to reach a critical mass, forcing a reaction from Romney.

Still, despite the German adoption and evolving of ‘shitstorm,’ in my mind, it’s still very much a word unique to the English language. One of my favorite aspects of American (er, and British) culture is the flexibility of the language that allows us to create compound words to describe new phenomena with ease — like cybercast, brainstorm, or hellcat. This gives us the ability to make up words with nuanced cadences and connotations that say just what we mean. For example, a shitshow (a display of incompetence) is not the same thing as a shitstorm (widespread outcry and controversy that’s difficult to control).

We’re constantly making up compound words like this in our daily lives, even if they don’t have formal definitions. For example, we’ll add “-fest” to the end of anything to indicate “a gathering or celebration” — nerd-fest, food-fest, tech-fest, etc. It’s no wonder, then, that our compounds make their way into other languages, where they express concepts for which there are no single words. The Germans also took a liking to “stresstest,” and France’s L’Académie Française tried unsuccessfully to strike “le week-end” from daily usage (it just flows off the tongue better than le fin de semaine). Of course, we have a big debt to German, French, and a host of other languages for some pretty choice words, too.

So while critics might say that Romney lacks foreign policy experience, at least now he can say that thanks to his ‘shitstorm,’ he’s participated in a German-American cross-cultural exchange.

The Challenge: Write a story about a U.S. president in 600 words or less

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Every few months, All Things Considered on NPR hosts a wildly popular writing contest called Three-Minute Fiction. It starts with a simple prompt, created by a respected writer who’s invited to serve as the judge. It ignites listeners, who feverishly write stories that must be 600 words or less (so they can be read out loud within three minutes).

Then the waiting game begins… entrants post obsessively on the 3MF Facebook page, where they find support for horrifying realizations like, “My story actually came out to 601 words…. !!!” Finally, the finalists’ stories are posted online and read on-air — but weeks later, only one lucky writer is named the winner.

Round 9 is currently underway, and submissions are due on September 23rd by 11:59pm ET. This year’s prompt? “Story entries must revolve around a U.S. president, who can be real or fictional.”

So what makes the U.S. president such a compelling character to write about? Well, from the birth of a nation and the New Deal to Watergate and the Monica Lewinsky scandal, presidents give writers the kind of meaty material you just can’t make up.

Bestselling novelist Brad Meltzer (who also happens to be the judge for round 9) put it this way for NPR: “There is nothing like meeting the president of the United States,” he says. “Anytime you even see the president, you have a story to tell for the rest of your life.”

From The West Wing to Air Force One to pretty much every Tom Clancy novel ever written, works of fiction about the American president have a way of capturing our imaginations. (Even works based on history that might not sound all that riveting — you know, like an HBO miniseries on John Adams — end up being mind-blowingly fascinating.)

If writing fiction is something you’ve always wanted to try (or something you love to do, but let too many “buts” get in the way), then this is a great project for you to crank out in the remaining 6 days before the deadline. Just don’t let the word length fool you into a false sense of complacency — writing short isn’t always easier. Remember that famous quote often attributed to Mark Twain: “I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.”

From Apple to Ikea, product names that get lost in translation

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Apple announced the highly-anticipated iPhone5 yesterday, along with a slew of other new products, sending gadget geeks into a tizzy.

Before major events like this, the Apple store is always taken offline — and restored immediately after the launch of its shiniest new toy, complete with all the sexy specs and details. It’s a smart practice for a company whose every move is watched, analyzed, debated, criticized, or romanticized, depending on whom you ask.

Apple last announced a new iPhone (the 4S) in October 2011, when we were introduced to Siri — the voice-activated virtual assistant with eerily profound answers to “Where can I get a burrito?” or “What’s the meaning of life?” Still, critics pounced on the fact that “Siri” sounds awkwardly similar (though not exactly the same) as the word for buttocks in Japanese. Oops.

The fact is, product names don’t always translate well across cultures, and these kinds of blunders are becoming a growing trend as consumer goods spread across the globe like wildfire.We latch onto these examples because they’re a simple, funny way to illustrate the challenges we all face with language and understanding as the world becomes smaller. Certainly, Apple’s not alone in trying to tackle this.

Another famous example you may have heard is the Chevy Nova. As the story goes, the car was a huge flop in Latin America in the ’70s because no va means “doesn’t go” in Spanish. It’s even been cited in marketing textbooks as a classic example of a product name that doesn’t translate well in foreign markets. More recently, this has been debunked as something of a myth, and while the Nova may not have been a hit in Spanish-speaking markets, it wasn’t exactly a flop either.  Of course, what is true is that Toyota changed the name of the MR2 to MR for its French market, so it didn’t sound quite so much like merde.

These examples pale in comparison to Ikea, which has had so many product name mishaps, you could practically write a book on them. You almost have to wonder if at this point, it’s a conscious part of their marketing strategy to garner attention. After all, the Fartfull workbench and the Jerker desk haven’t seemed to stop consumers from flocking to their stores.

There are so many examples of translation pitfalls in today’s global economy, it’s impossible to list them all here (Huffington Post has a good roundup of the top 11, if you’re curious and in the mood for a chuckle — not even Pepsi and KFC are safe). The phenomenon’s even the subtext of the Broadway play Chinglish, which tells the story of an American businessman from a sign company, trying to win business in China. It highlights the hilarious, confusing, and occasionally offensive translations that happen from Chinese to English (and vice versa) despite our best intentions to try and understand each other.

It turns out there’s a reason why cultural communication firms are on the rise. Before breaking into a market, the smart thing for companies to do is consult native speakers who’ve been fully-immersed in the culture in question. For example, I might speak decent Hindi, but I can’t possibly understand the cultural context of northern India in the same way as someone who’s grown up there and can identify potentially embarrassing slang, double meanings, or homophones.

The way I see it, it’s better to swallow your pride now rather than find out later your translation has accidentally caused a major scandal.

The most important edit in Bill Clinton’s DNC speech?

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© grandeduc - Fotolia.comLast week at the Democratic National Convention, Bill Clinton delivered a speech to remember. It was pointed, impassioned, and at just under 50 minutes, filled with Clinton’s own ad-libs and asides that tested the skills of his teleprompter operator. (He added 2,300 words to his 3,200-word speech — a 72% increase.)

This set the Internet a-Twittering about Bill Clinton, master ad-libber. News organizations released a text vs. audio comparison of his now famous DNC speech, revealing the thought process of a great orator who knows how to use language in a way that instills agency and inspires action.

Clinton made a number of noteworthy edits on the fly. He changed “should vote for Barack Obama” to “must vote for Barack Obama,” conveying a sense of urgency. He used “we” instead of “you,” which says, “we’re in this together.” He added in no-nonsense, conversational lead-ins like, “You see, we believe that X” or “Now, we all know that X,” setting up the vivid portrait of contrast he painted between the two candidates.

But in my mind, one of the best and most important edits was also one of the smallest. It happened at the very beginning of his speech (see the full edited transcript):

A man who stopped the slide into depression and put us on the long road to recovery, knowing all the while that no matter how many jobs were created and saved he saved or created, there were still millions more waiting, trying to feed their children and worried about feeding their own kids, trying to keep their hopes alive.

Clinton went from the passive voice (Jobs were created and saved…) to the active voice (He saved or created jobs…). Now, you probably remember the passive voice being maligned by your middle school English teacher (Grammar Girl explains the difference between active and passive voice, if you want details) — but why is this so important?

As Constance Hale put it in her New York Times column, “In the active voice, the subject performs the action. In the passive voice, the subject is acted upon.” So it’s a question of agency. WHO created and saved these jobs? If “jobs were created and saved,” it leaves open for interpretation who should get credit for this action. Maybe it was the Democrats, maybe it was the Republicans, maybe it was just a matter of luck.

By saying “he saved or created” these jobs, Clinton is giving the credit to President Obama without a doubt. It empowers him as a job creator, rather than making him a passive observer of something outside of his control. It’s a small but significant edit at a time when job creation (and Obama’s ability to make it happen) is at the forefront of the 2012 election.

That doesn’t mean, of course, that the passive voice is always wrong. Sometimes, like in certain kinds of scientific and academic writing, it makes sense to diminish yourself or the “actor” in the sentence. For example, “The monkeys were found to respond well to X” rather than “We found the monkeys responded well to X.” In this case, the researchers don’t want to insert themselves too much into the writing because it distracts the reader from their findings. This style often makes sense in crime or accident reports as well.

But as with all writing, there should be a conscious choice behind the voice you use. Remember, there’s a big difference between saying “I made a mistake” vs. “Mistakes were made.” The former is a disarming statement of strength that’s likely to get people’s attention — and hopefully earn their forgiveness. The latter is slimy and slippery, suggesting that no one is willing to take charge or own up to bad decisions. In general, passive voice isn’t the best way for politicians or other leaders to win over trust.

So when in doubt, if you’re speaking in public, go active like Clinton does. Here’s a little mnemonic device to help you out: Active voice is for agents. Passive voice is for pushovers.

Top 3 political spelling blunders immortalized by the media

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'I'm With Mitt' iPhone app

When it comes to politics, semantics matter. Every word, every turn of phrase, is subject to media scrutiny. Sometimes it seems there’s practically a bad grammar beat, where reporters and bloggers eagerly await the opportunity to gleefully pounce on our less eloquent politicians. George W. Bush perhaps learned this more harshly than any other president, having entire blogs, columns and even a poem devoted to his bizarre mistakes and malapropisms (a.k.a. Bushisms).

Now, as you probably suspect, I’m a stickler for good spelling and grammar. Using the most appropriate words, or a particular sentence structure, is essential to communicating ideas with precision and clarity. If you can articulate something well, it means you understand it deeply. So, when politicians butcher spelling, grammar, or simple sayings, it makes us wonder (fairly or not) if they’re totally full of BS.

As one political convention ends and another gets underway, I thought I’d take this opportunity to round up what I deem the top three political spelling blunders in recent memory, with the caveat that social media and a 24-hour-news cycle magnify every gaffe nowadays to epic proportions in 10 seconds flat. (Maybe President Tyler couldn’t spell Tippecanoe to save his life, but we’ll never know because it’s not immortalized on the Web or on TV for all to see…) So here they are, in no particular order:

Dan Quayle misspells ‘potato’: Dan Quayle should count his lucky stars he wasn’t Vice President in the age of Twitter (Joe Biden, of course, hasn’t been so fortunate).  Twenty years later, he’s perhaps best remembered for a fateful day in 1992 when he visited a classroom in New Jersey. A boy steps up to the chalkboard, Quayle asks him to spell ‘potato,’ and he writes it out (correctly, mind you) in neat cursive.  Dan Quayle “corrects” the boy’s spelling and has him add an ‘e’ on the end. Dumbfounded, the boy complies and writes ‘potatoe’ on the board – at which point Quayle starts clapping and congratulating the boy for getting it “right” the second time around. Talk show hilarity ensues, and Dan Quayle takes his place in the pantheon of frequently mocked politicians.

Sarah Palin misspells ‘repudiate’… or maybe it was ‘refute’: Palin is perhaps the only other politician to be lambasted as much as Bush for, well, making no sense whatsoever. Tina Fey had a field day using Palin’s own mystifying sequences of words, which I won’t even dare call sentences, to parody her on SNL. To be fair, it’s possible to be a brilliant writer yet freeze up when it comes to speaking in front of an audience. And Palin, in fact, compared herself to a certain brilliant writer named William Shakespeare when she made up the word ‘refudiate’ on Twitter (she meant ‘refute’, FYI). It even went on to become word of the year in 2010. Brava, Ms. Palin — or should I say, ShakesPalin.

(Note: Bushisms including “misunderestimate” didn’t make the list because they aren’t spelling errors, per se — they’re just completely baffling non-words.)

Mitt Romney’s campaign misspells America: It started as an attempt to reach tech-savvy voters with a logo calling for “A Better America” that Romney supporters could superimpose over images they posted across social media. It ended as a nightmarish example of the importance of spell-check, when the campaign released their “I’m With Mitt” app calling for “A Better Amercia” … oops. It went on to become a positively hilarious Internet meme with more parodies than serious posters – and it spread faster than, well, the Romney campaign furiously trying to fix their spate of spelling errors.  We know Romney likes to fire people, but I’m not sure what happened to the poor staffer who let the famous ‘Amercia’ typo slip. Last I read, Romney’s looking for a copy editor.

As ridiculous as these errors might seem, no election should be determined on the basis of egregious typos (*gasp!*) – or even what might appear to be a total disregard for the English language.  But with the current campaign-season circus, it can sometimes be hard to cut through the semantic crap to get to a kernel of truth.

Sure, everybody makes mistakes sometimes, and not every typo means you can’t trust a candidate. But it does seem like sloppy communication is on the rise among public figures you’d expect to be most cautious (ahem, Anthony Weiner). Maybe they’re just behind the times. Or maybe these kinds of careless errors are a reminder that social media and a 24-hour-news cycle are contributing to a culture in which candidates often worry more about media attention and less about delivering a meaningful message.