Author: SpinningStreak

Lost in translation

I was (briefly) gutted today to receive a four star review for the handspun yarn above. In the 15 years I have been selling on Etsy (1,657 sales to date) I have never before had fewer than the full five stars. (Well, there was one occasion when a buyer awarded me three because she couldn’t fasten her item. She withdrew the low review when I showed her where the buttons were neatly concealed!)

The buyer of the yarn above was very sweet. She praised the wool as ‘very pretty’ and mentioned fast delivery etc But she was disappointed that the colours looked different. I don’t usually have a problem getting accurate photos of those particular colours (some purple/blues are quite a different matter…) and I had clearly taken several pictures on different days, from batt to skein, before and after setting the twist…so there is not a lot more I can do about how they look on different monitors.

The reason I mention this here, though, is because of the online translation. My buyer is French (with a lovely Etsy name involving sheep). The relevant part of her review states that ‘les couleurs sont assez différentes de la photo’. It just so happens that I speak French – and in any case that sentence is hardly complicated. It has been translated by Etsy (Google?) as ‘the colours are quite different from the photo’. NOT correct. ‘Assez’ often does carry the meaning of ‘quite’ – but here it should have been rendered as ‘rather’ or ‘somewhat’ different, NOT ‘quite different’ = ‘totally different’, which is QUITE DIFFERENT and not QUITE FAIR!

I wonder how often I encounter this online in languages I don’t know and so have no chance of spotting it.

PS. I am well over fretting about the lost star! In the scale of things it doesn’t make a scrap of difference and it wasn’t really anything in my control. I shall treat the incident as character building, and a warning not to get complacent!

Everything is selfish

My experience of working with teenagers is that on the whole they are kind, supportive of one another and quite touchingly optimistic. I sat through a secondary school Assembly this morning which I assume was part of an anti-bullying week programme – not sure, because I did miss the beginning. The students were urged to go out and do something kind. The presentation was led by a science teacher, in a lab coat. We were told we had to believe him because 1) he had a white coat on (maybe not too serious!) and 2) because he was a doctor (PhD in physics, I’m pretty sure…)

It was all very interesting. Neurobiology. Not just the hormones oxytocin and dopamine – increased levels of the neurotransmitter serotonin as well. The whole Helpers’ High.

We listened politely. It was certainly well meant. But I began to feel uneasy at the direction we were taking – which was brilliantly expressed by a couple of students in front of me on the way out. “So,” said one of them, “everything is selfish.”

Is that the message then?

Just grumbling….

And not even any pictures for Blogvember 14…

I’ve spent the day working with teenagers, followed by a rearranged evening to help out with young grandchildren – and I don’t share pictures of either of those groups.

So not much to add. But I know if I miss a day I will never climb back on board!

The grumbling relates to the Post Office. I rushed into town on Sunday so that I could avoid the Monday crowds. It is supposed to stay open till 3pm – but they couldn’t staff it, so no possibility of posting my ball of hand spun wool to the USA – self service machines can’t cope with Abroad. So, back into town next day – long, uncomfortable queues as expected. The staff in our main PO are amazing – NOT their fault at all. But the organisation they work for? No-one updates opening times on the web site, the staff are run ragged performing all sorts of extra duties, the delivery times are erratic, the prices increasing all the time (£15.65 to post that ball of wool!) – the whole experience is dismal. Closing all the little local POs has put extra strain on the main branch, which is now squashed away in the basement of WHSmiths. Previously we often had 10 hatches open – now you’re lucky if there are two. Can it really be this bad everywhere?

Day 13: Unfinished business

Listing on Etsy, that is. And today other work (which I love doing) got in the way as well. But I’m on it now – much of the yarn from yesterday’s pictures has already made it up there and I am beginning on the hot water bottles. I am under some pressure to clear space in the house (photo on Blogvember day 5 gives just a partial view….) People helpfully point out that until I do list the stuff, no-one can actually buy it. Well, of course I do know that, but describing finished items is so boring, compared to making them…. Very important to do it carefully though, so I’m now back at it.

Cup of tea in 20 minutes? Chocolate in an hour? Sneaky bit of spinning at midnight? That’s the kind of desperate bribery I seem to be into.