What’s the use? Isn’t the concept better left to the Chinese character for “unknown”? Unconceived? Inconceivable? (And don’t get me started about the Chinese and the Tibetans.)
If an n word falls off the tongue and there’s nobody there to understand it, does it make any noise? or sense?
Offensive couch label traced to China
Racial slur blamed on Chinese company’s faulty translation program
The Associated Press
Updated: 6:08 a.m. PT April 20, 2007
TORONTO - Doris Moore was shocked when her new couch was delivered to her home with a label that used a racial slur to describe the dark brown shade of the upholstery.
The situation was even more alarming for Moore because it was her 7-year-old daughter who pointed out “n----- brown” on the tag.
“My daughter saw the label and she knew the color brown, but didn’t know what the other word meant. She asked, ’Mommy, what color is that?’ I was stunned. I didn’t know what to say. I never thought that’s how she’d learn of that word,” Moore said.
The mother complained to the furniture store, which blamed the supplier, who pointed to a computer problem as the source of the derogatory label
Translation program at faultKingsoft Corp., a Chinese software company, acknowledged its translation program was at fault and said it was a regrettable error.
“I know this is a very bad word,” Huang Luoyi, a product manager for the Beijing-based company’s translation software, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.
He explained that when the Chinese characters for “dark brown” are typed into an older version of its Chinese-English translation software, the offensive N-word description comes up.
“We got the definition from a Chinese-English dictionary. We’ve been using the dictionary for 10 years. Maybe the dictionary was updated, but we probably didn’t follow suit,” he said.
Moore, who is black, said Kingsoft’s acknowledgment of a mistake doesn’t make her feel better.
“They should know what they are typing, even if it is a software error,” she said. “In order for something to come into the country, don’t they read it first? Doesn’t the manufacturer? The supplier?”Store owner didn't know the wordRomesh Vanaik, owner of Vanaik Furniture where Moore bought the sofa, said it has been a best seller. He said he checked his stock but found no other couch with the offensive label.
He added that he had not known the meaning of the N-word.
“It’s amazing. I’ve been here since 1972 and I never knew the meaning of this word,” said Vanaik, a native of India.
His supplier, Paul Kumar of Cosmos Furniture in Toronto, denied responsibility and refused to give the name of the couch’s Chinese manufacturer.
“It’s not my fault. It’s not the manufacturers’ fault,” he said, adding that Kingsoft was to blame.
Huang said Kingsoft has worked to correct the translation error. In the 2007 version, typing “dark brown” in Chinese does not produce the racial slur in English. But if the offensive term is typed in English, the Chinese translation is “dark brown,” he said.
Moore wants compensationMoore is consulting with a lawyer and wants compensation. Last week, she filed a report with the Ontario Human Rights Commission.
Commission spokeswoman Afroze Edwards said the case is in the initial stages and could take six months to two years to resolve.
Moore, 30, has three young children, and said the issue has taken a toll on her family.
“Something more has to be done. We don’t just need a personal apology, but someone needs to own up to where these labels were made, and someone needs to apologize to all people of color,” Moore said. “I had friends over from St. Lucia yesterday and they wouldn’t sit on the couch.”
© 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
* The Sheila Variations
. . .
OK, if you're still reading, that was just a warm-up. I'm acutally feeling more ambitious--I'd like to write a story about a man who's become so utterly bored by his horoscope. He's so bored he hasn't bothered to keep up his journal for a month, the journal that's been reduced to horoscope entries that he no longer believes have any relation to his life. Which is more insignificant, the fake fortunes or the life? he wonders. One impostor after another illusory life:
VIRGO (August 23-September 22)
Thanks to Rob Breszny’s Free Will Astrology
March 15-21
High-level financial officials from the U.S. government recently visited their Chinese counterparts, scolding them for having a booming economy and strong currency that's threatening the American economy. Here's what Alan Abelson wrote about the meeting in Barron's. "There's something hilarious about the world's biggest debtor, whose currency is sagging, lecturing a country that runs a humongous trade surplus and boasts a cool trillion in foreign reserves." You may soon get metaphorically similar pressure, Virgo. People with a fraction of your savvy and resources may try to manipulate you into serving their aims. Politely ignore their pressure. This is a time when you should be enjoying your hard-earned goodies with pure relish, not worrying about them or defending them or trying to adjust them to fit anyone else's specifications.
March 22-28
It's the perfect time to kill off old habits that drag you down and to sever bad connections that bring out the worst in you. Therefore, I suggest you make an undercover search-and-destroy visit to the murkiest parts of the underworld. When you get back, invite skeletons to come out of the closet and monsters to crawl out from beneath the bed for a nice long heart-to-heart talk full of tough love. And in general, don't you dare avert your gaze from any song and dance that might half-scare you and half-inspire you into triumphing over evil. P.S. In every decay there'll be beauty; in every loss there'll be a glimmer of future joy.
March 29-April 4
One out of every 20 people claims to have talked to the devil personally. That statistic could change in the coming week, however, because I'm predicting that many of you Virgos will sit down for a heart-to-heart with the horned one. For most of you, furthermore, the conversation will go surprisingly well. You'll out-argue the devil, impressing him with your logic and winning him over with your charm, leading him to promise to dramatically reduce the number of insidious temptations he'll send your way in the future. APRIL FOOL! There is no such thing as the devil. But it is true that you're likely to triumph over evil in the coming week.
April 5-11
The Dalai Lama, one of the planet's superheroes, was born during a rare grand trine of Jupiter, Saturn, and sun in the water signs. This week those same planets will conduct an equally extraordinary grand trine in the fire signs. At the very least, I expect the birth of a sublime being whose benevolence will one day match the Dalai Lama's. I also suspect that millions of other wonders will hatch, a disproportionate amount of which will be engendered by you Virgos. Your fertility is at a peak, as is your knack for creating interesting goodness and cathartic beauty.
April 12=18
St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) was an intellectual theologian whose doctrines became part of the canon of the Catholic Church, second in importance only to the Bible. But the Church has ignored and disavowed Aurora Consurgens, the work Aquinas reputedly wrote near the end of his life after having mystical visions of the Goddess. "All that I have written seems to me like so much straw," he reported, "compared to what I have seen and what has been revealed to me." Your assignment, Virgo, is to carry out your personal equivalent of what the Catholic Church hasn't been able to do. In other words, integrate the raw wisdom from your past that you've been unable or hesitant to acknowledge.
Then there’s this one:
April 19-25
"The important thing," said French naturalist Charles DuBois, "is to be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we could become." Did he really mean at any moment? Like while we're in a convenience store buying beer? While we're lying in bed ready for sleep and reviewing the events of the day? While we're adrift in apathetic melancholy, watching too much TV and neglecting our friends? At ANY moment?! I say yes. At all times and in all places, Virgo--especially this week--be ready to sacrifice what you are for what you could become.
Thanks to Rob Breszny’s Free Will Astrology
March 15-21
High-level financial officials from the U.S. government recently visited their Chinese counterparts, scolding them for having a booming economy and strong currency that's threatening the American economy. Here's what Alan Abelson wrote about the meeting in Barron's. "There's something hilarious about the world's biggest debtor, whose currency is sagging, lecturing a country that runs a humongous trade surplus and boasts a cool trillion in foreign reserves." You may soon get metaphorically similar pressure, Virgo. People with a fraction of your savvy and resources may try to manipulate you into serving their aims. Politely ignore their pressure. This is a time when you should be enjoying your hard-earned goodies with pure relish, not worrying about them or defending them or trying to adjust them to fit anyone else's specifications.
March 22-28
It's the perfect time to kill off old habits that drag you down and to sever bad connections that bring out the worst in you. Therefore, I suggest you make an undercover search-and-destroy visit to the murkiest parts of the underworld. When you get back, invite skeletons to come out of the closet and monsters to crawl out from beneath the bed for a nice long heart-to-heart talk full of tough love. And in general, don't you dare avert your gaze from any song and dance that might half-scare you and half-inspire you into triumphing over evil. P.S. In every decay there'll be beauty; in every loss there'll be a glimmer of future joy.
March 29-April 4
One out of every 20 people claims to have talked to the devil personally. That statistic could change in the coming week, however, because I'm predicting that many of you Virgos will sit down for a heart-to-heart with the horned one. For most of you, furthermore, the conversation will go surprisingly well. You'll out-argue the devil, impressing him with your logic and winning him over with your charm, leading him to promise to dramatically reduce the number of insidious temptations he'll send your way in the future. APRIL FOOL! There is no such thing as the devil. But it is true that you're likely to triumph over evil in the coming week.
April 5-11
The Dalai Lama, one of the planet's superheroes, was born during a rare grand trine of Jupiter, Saturn, and sun in the water signs. This week those same planets will conduct an equally extraordinary grand trine in the fire signs. At the very least, I expect the birth of a sublime being whose benevolence will one day match the Dalai Lama's. I also suspect that millions of other wonders will hatch, a disproportionate amount of which will be engendered by you Virgos. Your fertility is at a peak, as is your knack for creating interesting goodness and cathartic beauty.
April 12=18
St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) was an intellectual theologian whose doctrines became part of the canon of the Catholic Church, second in importance only to the Bible. But the Church has ignored and disavowed Aurora Consurgens, the work Aquinas reputedly wrote near the end of his life after having mystical visions of the Goddess. "All that I have written seems to me like so much straw," he reported, "compared to what I have seen and what has been revealed to me." Your assignment, Virgo, is to carry out your personal equivalent of what the Catholic Church hasn't been able to do. In other words, integrate the raw wisdom from your past that you've been unable or hesitant to acknowledge.
Then there’s this one:
April 19-25
"The important thing," said French naturalist Charles DuBois, "is to be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we could become." Did he really mean at any moment? Like while we're in a convenience store buying beer? While we're lying in bed ready for sleep and reviewing the events of the day? While we're adrift in apathetic melancholy, watching too much TV and neglecting our friends? At ANY moment?! I say yes. At all times and in all places, Virgo--especially this week--be ready to sacrifice what you are for what you could become.
Shades of Carlos Casteneda!
