Acrostics
And recycling
Back in ye olden days, I used to be a Chair. I had hopes that one day, if I worked hard, I might become a sofa, but sadly things didn’t quite work out that way and nowadays I’m not so much a chair as a stool, bobbing around in a sewer of my own thoughts.
The organisation I chaired (and what a verb that is, conjuring up images of chair as a doing word, perhaps a chair hurtling down a road in some way, I wonder what its etymology is. Of course, I could look it up, but that might spoil the magic a bit) is a membership organisation for translators and interpreters in the UK, and every couple of months, I wrote a column for its much-loved magazine, the ITI Bulletin, sadly now deceased and replaced by another magazine which has only had one issue thus far, so it’s too early to judge really, although I do miss the editor of the previous one.
For reasons that were clear to me at the time, but which I’ve already forgotten today, I was flicking through some of those columns the other day. It’s interesting to look back and to be reminded just what a nightmare the pandemic was for so many of us, and also to see how well the translation and interpreting community came together.
As Mr Dickens said, and as quoted in my last post, so at least I’m consistent, it was the best of times, worst of times, or something like that.
Anyway, one of the columns I wrote, back in 2021, was an acrostic, which is a poem or piece of writing in which the first letter of each new line spells out a word or message. Curiously, one of the best examples of the past few decades was by a journalist called James May, who went on to do lots of stuff on the telly. He talks about what he did here, and here’s an image of the pages in question:
James May’s Autocar Acrostic
My column was nowhere near as interesting as his, but it was also one of the most tricky to write and, having found it again, I’ve decided that it’s time for it to get a second outing, here on Substack. I haven’t actually checked if I can do large capitals at the beginning of each paragraph (update: it seems I can’t, and so the first letters in question will need to be red instead), or if I can do it in two columns, like I did originally (nope apparently not, but maybe that’s more a question of html skills than anything else), but here we go, updated slightly for 2026:
This post originally appeared in a column that seemed to come back very quickly, every few months. No sooner had the editor pressed the button to send the previous edition to the printers, than my anxiety levels started to ramp up, wondering what on earth I was going to say in the next one.
Really though, I don’t know what I was so worried about, there was so much going on, both within ITI itself (ITIself?) and in the wider translation & interpreting world, that it genuinely almost wrote itself some months.
As an example, I wrote the original version of this at the end of April 2021 (well, more accurately, I wrote the first sentence in March, dithered and prevaricated through most of April, then broke out into a cold sweat and started hammering away at the keyboard on the May Bank Holiday weekend. The magazine then went to press at some point in June (if I understood how these things work, which I think I did, eventually – I certainly know that I had to write my New Year column in October or so).
Neatly, that means that the ITI Conference happened between writing and publication which meant that I couldn’t fill this column with effusive comments about the speakers, about the sessions, about the awards.
Sadly I didn’t know how it was going to go (I do now, it went brilliantly, although also online, which was a shame but necessary at the time). If there had been a UK-wide power cut at the start of the first day, then I would end up looking like one of those theatre or cinema reviewers who leaves to file their copy before an unexpected twist, and ends up with egg on their face. I like eggs, and I’m sure they’re good for the complexion, but I’d rather have them scrambled, on toast. Curiously, we had several power cuts here overnight last night, which was a nice twist!
Leaving plans to write about the conference to one side, I would just like to take a moment to write about awards.
Awards are one of the more exciting aspects of the Chair’s job - the pleasure that comes from handing over a shiny piece of cut glass, a bunch of flowers, or a bottle of fizz, can’t be overstated, and I was very happy that we were able to continue the awards ceremonies in the online world, as well as being delighted to see the current Chair continue the tradition, in the real world, last week.
Talking of face-to-face events, we did get to meet up in the real world in 2022, in Brighton, which was an excellent place for my swansong. Although I suppose it should probably have been my gullsong instead, since we were by the sea!
I wrote the original version of this post with the news playing in the background, while today I’ve got tennis from Wimbledon in the corner of my screen. I probably shouldn’t really have it on though, or my mind might wander off at another tangent. I have a theory that if you wander off along too many tangents, you get back to your starting point soon enough.
Once you’ve done that, you can delete the offending rambling waffle in the middle of the text and keep going, happy in the knowledge that nobody will ever notice just how far from the point you have travelled. I think I’ve just spent half an hour in South Mimms Services on the M25, my mind is that far from where it should be.
Notwithstanding the wandering mind, don’t you find that sometimes, wandering off into a dictionary can be helpful if you’re curious, since you can end up finding out things you might otherwise never have discovered.
If I’m not looking at dictionaries, I can sometimes be found with my nose in an encyclopaedia I’ve enjoyed perusing since I was a boy. It’s from the 1860s and I used to take great pleasure in finding out things that have changed since it was written. I’m not sure what that says about younger me, sitting alone by the fireplace (it was a very nice fireplace, allegedly “borrowed” from the local abbey just after the reformation), flicking through hour after hour.
Not all of the changes represent improvements. It’s quite interesting, for instance, to realise that there is nothing about the internal combustion engine in there, nor indeed anything about the Antarctic, which hadn’t been “discovered”.
Translation isn’t in there at all either, while the entry for Interpretation defines it as “the explanation of the true meaning of an author, or instrument”, and it goes on to give explanations using legal terminology in Latin, which definitely needs translating.
Even when I wasn’t flicking through ancient reference books, young me could be found perusing paper-based entertainment devices.
Reading, in fact, is probably what made me who I am today (and I’m not talking about the Reading Festival I once went to, although maybe that had some sort of impact too).
Picking up a book is still probably at the top of my list of Things-To-Do, although I’m not alone in finding there are too many distractions at the moment (as true in 2021 as it is today), which is why I’m looking forward to going on holiday before too long, like in ye olden days, and just sitting there, motionless, while my mind gets transported (not to South Mimms).
Reviewing what I’ve written this time, it looks like it’s more rambling than usually, sorry about that!
Even though, as I said earlier, I try to stay focused, sometimes it’s just not my forte.
Taking a moment to look at it another way, it just means I’m multi-tasking.
I’m quite pleased with that. If I can think about lots of things at once, and manage to get most of them done, then maybe there’s hope for me after all.
Now, where was I. Oh yes, I said I’d started typing this column over a Bank Holiday weekend over 5 years ago. Well, it took a week and now here we are again, at the end of what I might call AcrosticV2. I’ve reached the end, before the deadline.
Glad that’s over. Next time I decide to do an acrostic, remind me that it’s not a good idea, although recycling is, for me at least, if not for anybody who has struggled through this.
Thank you for reading. If, quite understandably, the thought of subscribing is too much to contemplate, but you’ve enjoyed reading something I’ve written, even if it’s recycled, then you also have the option to simply buy me a few braincells so that I can come up with new ideas (contributions may in fact be used to buy wine, to damage the braincells instead, but I won’t tell if you don’t ask).
I have you to thank via LinkedIn that I published a piece in the ITI Bulletin a couple of years back. Sorry to hear that it has changed its format now - I must finish my application to join!