Yeah, yeah, I haven’t been blogging of late, but I hope to return at full throttle soon. In the meantime I couldn’t resist mentioning a story in the NY Times about the US-Russia relations “reset button.” We all now know that the Obama Administration is making some effort to repair relations with Russia. The first sign came with Joe Biden’s “press the reset button” statement in February. Then earlier this week we learned that Obama sent a “secret letter” to Medvedev hoping to enlist Russia in dealing with Iran in exchange for scrapping the missile defense system in Eastern Europe. The Russians received the letter coldly, and you can’t blame them.
Well the Reset Button Doctrine appears to be going ahead though the first problem doesn’t appear to be resetting relations as it is finding the correct Russia word for “reset”. Secretary of State Clinton was in Russia yesterday to meet with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov with hopes to warm relations. Now forget that there was little actually “reset” in the meeting, but there was a button. Says the NY Times,
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, in greeting Sergey V. Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, presented him with a red plastic button emblazoned with the English word “reset” and the Russian word “peregruzka.”
The gift was a play on Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s call in Munich last month for the two countries to “press the reset button” on their relationship.
“We worked hard to get the right Russian word,” Mrs. Clinton said, handing the button to Mr. Lavrov. “Do you think we got it?”
“You got it wrong,” he replied, explaining that the Americans had come up with the Russian word for overcharged.
What morons. Are you telling me that Clinton’s staff had to “work hard” to find the right word for reset and they still messed it up? Maybe Clinton should be pressing the reset button on her staff. It’s nice to see that the new Administration is continuing the incompetency of the old one.
Photo: Associated Press.
A last one from me on the “peregruzka” issue. I suspect that several of you have read today’s JRL Steve Shabad’s email. From reading the email, it’s easy to see why there was some confusion even among those who are fluent in both languages. For the curious, here is the text of the email :
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There has been a lot of confusion over the linguistic error on Hillary Clinton’s gift of a gadget “reset button” to Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. First, Lavrov himself pointed out that the Russian word “peregruzka” inscribed on the button was a mistranslation, but then he himself erred in saying that that word means “overcharge.” It actually means “overload.”
Now Peter Lavelle, in his otherwise reasonable commentary on the prospects for U.S.-Russian relations, has unwittingly compounded the confusion by mistranslating “peregruzka” as “reload,” evidently thinking that the reload here means reloading weapons. And then he bases his commentary on the false juxtaposition of “reset” vs. “reload.”
As I mentioned at the top, “peregruzka” means “overload,” not “reload.” And ironically, one of the correct translations of “reset,” the word “perezagruzka,” which was undoubtedly the word that Hillary’s staff intended to put on the button, does normally mean “reload.” In this context, however, it is meant in the computer or electronic sense, as in reloading (i.e. resetting) parameters.
It’s worth noting that the Russian media themselves rendered “reset” several different ways in its dispatches on Joe Biden’s speech, where the word was first used. Besides using “perezagruzka,” they also translated the word as “perezapusk,” “sbros” and in a few cases simply inserted the word “reset” in English, since many Russians are presumably familiar with the English word from electronics they use.
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Of course many Russians know what “reset” means and do not need translation at all.
http://mobbit.info/item/2007/06/04/vneshnyaya-knopka-reset-prikol-no-vpolne-deistvyustcii
Exactly, Candide. That’s what the last few lines of that email said.
“… in a few cases simply inserted the word “reset” in English, since many Russians are presumably familiar with the English word from electronics they use.”
Hey, maybe State got the idea from that link you sent but then thought that if they don’t translate someone may take offense. As they say, the way to hell is paved on good intentions.