I downloaded it from <Limewire>, my local free music and videos store.

I haven't paid for any of my music in ages!!

Do you think INTERPOL is after me?

Ok, to the point, you seem to be skilled in linguistics and I was wondering, if I could ask you a quick question.

I got this today (among other things) in an e-mail I am translating:

"<How many times we have to register by name of athletes?>"

Um ... "Urine the Army Now" ... ?

"D'yeh ken John Pee"

"Blah, Blah and Bladder"

"WEE shall over-come"

And at number #1, the immortal Kinks song <"Loo LA">

Was it written in (strange) English like that, for translation into some other language? Or was there an original text in a different language, of which you made this literal word-by-word translation?

Actually, that sounds so dumb I'll ignore it (although maybe the writer wasn't very fluent in English, in which case knowing what their first language was might help) -- I'd guess something Slavic. Prob'ly Russian, given the total absence of the word "the".

OK, it was written in English, as shown. Next up: what does it mean?

Dunno, really. If you cut off that final 'by name of athletes', you *do* get a straight question -- "How many times do we have to register?"

Which could make sense. Then reintroduce the other stuff bit by bit. "by name", well, that's what registration involves, usually.

And "of athletes" -- unless it's a scam where somebody is impersonating an athlete to get a visa (it happens! -- even in Ireland some very unsportslike types turn up for international sporting events, and then vanish into Limerick's Nepalese ghetto, or whatever -- the underbelly of high-speed multicultutralism).

Again, I'll assume this person really is an athlete. And is concerned about filling in a form -- either in advance, to get accreditation or a visa or some kind of permit -- or later, on arrival, to actually register for the event.

I find that small nuances of culture can matter more than language in such cases. Some people see form-filling and registration as a sacred duty, others as a stupid pain in the neck. Some care, some don't, some are amused, some are frightened.

Case in point. When I was in college the annual registration form had a box for 'religion'. Some people would agonize over this, wondering if it was okay to say 'agnostic', would you get in trouble, etc. Me, I just made up a new religion every year -- Harvey's Bristol Witnesses, Paradoxical Hedonism, etc -- a bit pointless since they were sorted by computer and all went in the 'others' category regardless.

<recent case in point> In my last chess tournament, I left the playing hall without permission, forgetting completely that it broke the rules. I've only recently come back to tournament play, and it never occurred to me that I could've consulted Fritz.

My opponent - German, ironically - was going to complain but seemingly was persuaded by the brilliant tournament director not to do so, as it was just a misunderstanding. And he ticked me off, correctly - then said of my opponent: 'he speaks excellent English, but doesn't understand Irish'.

Which is nothing to do with languages -- but the difference between a culture where every sub-clause matters, and one that tends to be more relaxed about rules.

I suspect that your hard-to-translate person is over-worrying about practical details, and thus adds more info to the sentence than it really needs.

But what do I know? Not very much linguistics, despite what you say -- not technical stuff, anyway. And not any actual languages, not fluently enough to be a translator.

Just lots of mostly useless fragments...

In an English-to-English editing situation, I'd change your line to something simple like <"How many times will athletes have to register by name?"> or even <"Will I need to register?"> (with lots of room for detail in the answer, not the question).

The music meshes brilliantly -- bursts of raw Nailsesque noise interspersed with almost-melodies, 'found sounds' like dripping taps, clocks, engines. <Utterably>, effably, brilliant.

The only other records that come close are Walker's earlier 'Climate of Hunter' (though it lacks the noise element and is almost rockist in places); and Walker's 2006 opus 'The Drift' -- only a year old so I haven't begun to grasp it yet, just as it should be; and John Cale's 1982 meisterwerk, 'Music For a New Society'.

I'd also add Nico's 'Marble Index' and/or 'Desert Shore', both produced by Cale. How many 'pop' records have songs about death in four languages (Abschied; All That is My Own; Julius Caesar, Memento Hodie; Le Petit Chevalier) ... ?

"That was there, this is here."

THE ACCIDENT

<An absurd long short play about adjectives, the common enemy of humankind.>

- Had a little accident with me words, didn't I?
- You call that little? Wot's big?
- Er, *this* is big.
- Relatively, yes. Is it a member?
- Close.
- An imperative, meaning 'shut it'?
- Nope. Adjective. Near.
- There are *adjectives* near? Where?
- See that big, small, blue, colorless, green, poluphloisboiotatotic idea?

- Yeah, sure. The tree, right?
- Wrong. It's actually a seaweed, and it's full of the little buggers.

- They seem harmless enough.

- Only cos they're still eating each other. When they hit equilibrium, the survivors start eating *us*.

- Ah, Darwin. Or is it Disney?
- Both. Nature pink in tooth and claw.
- Look out! There's an adjective on your nature!
- That *pink*? Okay, I got it.
- Sheesh, will you look at that thing?
- Gives me the creeps.
- What'll you tell your wife, mother, partner, lover, insert name of significant other?

- No idea. "Darling, I've been beaten up again", maybe.

- You've used that.
- "Had a little accident with me words", then.
- Hmm. Sounds familiar.
- It should. You certain that 'familiar' and 'little' are just holograms? - Yep, we use 'em in training. The mortality rate is down to 50%.

- Reassuring. Now, about that significant other...
- Cretin, that sig-word isn't on the safe list -- duck!

- Just testing your reflexes.
- Duck and cover, yeah? Why?
- Let's elope.
- Let's what?
- Elope.
- I never eloped with an ant before.
- Well, you know what they say about the first time?

- No. But first is an adjective.
- It was, I killed it. Erster punkt.
- Okay, let's go.
- Where?
- The Premiership. Where the ant and the buffalope play.

- With the buff and the antelope?

- Yep, hey, watch it, yeurgh.
- It's the excitement. A little accident with me words.

- God almighty that stuff leaves a stain.
- As do we all.

EXEUNT

Notes

(1) Seaweed. This tells us the characters are actually under water, probably drowned, like Phlebas the Phoenician in Eliot's poem. "A current under sea picked his bones in whispers". This is from Death by Water, part IV of The Waste Land. Part II is A Game of Chess ("I think we are in rats' alley/ Where the dead men lost their bones.") Notice the bone motif. ("The skull beneath the skin").

(2) In Hiberno-English usage, a 'pint' of beer is a pint of beer, while a 'glass' is a half (pint). Thus there is no such thing as a 'large glass', whatever Duchamp said. Unless you're drinking wine, maybe. Which is a queer conundrum.

(3) Alfred Lord Tennyson wrote the line "Nature adjectival in Tooth and Claw" and also coined the word "Poluphloisboiotatotic" (= 'of the most-roaringest sea'). But Tennyson is not thought to be the author of this playlet. We suspect an AI -- a partly-broken-in computer model of Tennyson being put through its paces by 'composing' with a Pinter Filter on.

Such devices -- Pinterfilters, Krauthammers, and Pynchonifiers -- are now standard. But nobody has cracked the holy grail of e-ghosting, the Burroughs Adding Machine.

<Ed Trice: When I ask a person to elaborate after furnishing an "answer", and they can't, I KNOW they are of the class of people that "heard it before" but do not understand it at all. Those people do not deserve the same recognition as those that provide detailed answers.>

So that's what he was all about, Don: scoping out enemies. So when I did not respond to an impertinent demand, I became "one of those people."

Mark me, dear driend, this guy is a neurotic control freak and has the potential to do serious damage to the site. I labeled him troublemaker. The label sticks.

Gee, Dom I have been running like hell trying to keep up with you. I knew I would never make it, but -- Wow! -- I had some of the best and most creative times in my life.

I'm sad. Good-bye.

Dr Domdaniel: "Er, wot? Where did that strand emerge from? Have I been failing to pay attention in my own 'class'?"

- Yes, yes. We've elected Pol Pot here as Class President. This is a Revolution, baby. First up: death to teachers, would-be intellectuals, lecturers and lechers.

"Er, okay. Right, um, on?"

- Which includes you, you stupid old fart. I bet you don't even have an ipod or an mp3 player under that vile tweedy jacket?

"Too right I don't, music went out years ago. What you call tweed is actually a supersmart fabric that changes pattern according to incoming data. Right now it's showing... hmm, that's odd."

- What's odd?

"You, sunshine. Whoever heard of a 'young' revolutionary? Shouldn't you be out broking stock or whatever it is you kids do? Also odd, btw, is my jacket, which is displaying stark staring terror mode. Do you know why?"

- Yes. All this is over now.

[to lackeys]

- Take him out with the others and shoot him. Then broadcast this message.

<Dr Domdaniel has been shot for crimes of a counter-revolutionary native. This is term zero. The loin lies down with the limb. And those of you who wear glasses had best beware.>

<Here's to good old Boston
Land of the bean and the cod
Where Lowells talk only to Cabots
And Cabots talk only to God.>

And as every schoolchild will know after the, um, revolution...

<Here's to Gothic City
Home of the goblins and elves
Where the Jiffy just speaks to the Trices
And the Trices just talk to themselves.>

I still refuse to put <anyone> on ignore, however heinous their crimes. But it looks like I myself have been zapped, nuked, and iggied. And a good thing, too: there was a class-A thermonuclear polydimensional flame war looming, and I might have done somebody some damage.

These primitive impulse are deplorable, I know. But every so often you need to access your inner Kong, whether King or Donkey. Uncouple the limbic brain, and let it *eat* somebody.

Clears the air.

Hey -- you know those classic old-style kidnappers who physically mail bits of chopped-off victim, like a tongue or a thumb, to the anxious relatives? Question: what do the body parts say before leaving home? You have all the information you'll ever need, and then some.

Answer: "Back in a Jiffy". No points for "See you in a Trice".

Half a point for "La Lectrice" which cleverly combines Hannibal Lecter (serial killer motif) with a French film (by Patrice Leconte?) about a book-reader.

I am a forumless premium user now. So I am free to wander away for as long as I wish.

I just discovered by a post "Am I on Trice's iggy list?" that I is. That's more than you can say, hah! (BTW, I still have but <one> name on ignore.)

Yesterday in the Cafe I posted a long message -- in Latin! -- <Whiteshark> came in, and I came back with a wrapup post. So go ahead, you nosy newshawk, take a look.

I didn't get much sleep last night -- burning the work candle both ends while coping with some quite surreal RL crises -- the kind people say "we'll laugh about this some day" but they don't laugh in media res. Or is that 'in media rem'?

My Latin is rusty, but it's all still in there somewhere. I'm glad you're back.