XPost: alt.usage.english   
   From: peter@pmoylan.org   
      
   On 17/09/24 04:03, Silvano wrote:   
      
   > I don't know what is Aidan's profession, but medical practitioners   
   > are not the only people who may need to know the equivalent to a   
   > medical expression in another language. There are also those strange   
   > beasts called translators. I am one of them.   
      
   My ex-wife's work as a medical interpreter produced a wealth of stories   
   showing that lots of people understand very little about language.   
   Here's an example that actually happened. I've probably changed the   
   actual words, but I've retained the essence of what happened.   
      
   A hospital nurse phoned the interpreter service.   
      
   "Could you send an interpreter, please? We have a patient who can't   
   understand English."   
   "OK. What language?"   
   "Oh. I thought the interpreters did all languages."   
   "No, we have different people for different languages."   
   "Well, I think he speaks African."   
      
   That reminds me of an incident in an earlier job of hers, when she   
   worked in a psychiatric hospital. A small town north of Newcastle had   
   had no doctor for a long time, but Australia has a policy of getting   
   immigrant doctors out to rural areas, so they finally got someone. That   
   doctor sent one of his patients down to the psych hospital for   
   assessment. The clinical notes said that he was obsessed with attacking   
   birds.   
      
   When interviewed, one of the first things he said was   
   "Stone the crows, I don't know why they sent me here."   
      
   --   
   Peter Moylan       peter@pmoylan.org    http://www.pmoylan.org   
   Newcastle, NSW   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)