This blog recently reported on the removal of apostrophes – and other punctuation – in street names by Cambridge City Council as they “could lead to mistakes, particularly for emergency services” (posts passim).
Some heartening news now arrives courtesy of Private Eye on the response of Cantabrigians to their illiterate local authority.
It just goes to show that one cannot keep good pedants down.
At the start of the week, China suffered a major internet outage for several hours, Le Monde Informatique reported yesterday. Experts are wondering about the cause; was it hacking (to use the verb ‘to hack’ in its Daily Mail sense. Ed.) or a technical problem with the country’s censorship mechanisms?
Last Tuesday more than two-thirds of Chinese websites were inaccessible and millions of users were deprived of internet access for some 8 hours, according to Qihoo 360, a Chinese security software supplier best known for supplying anti-virus products. Security experts are wondering about the origin of this outage. Some believe it was hacking whilst others think there was a fault with the country’s so-called ‘Great Firewall’ censorship system.
After the outage, Chinese authorities conducted a preliminary inquiry which focussed on hacking. The Chinese CERT team is continuing its inquiry. giving priority to the hacking theory, Chinese specialists believe that they hijacked a root DNS server in China to reroute all the traffic. The Greatfire.org website, which analyses Chinese online censorship, disputes this diversion, stating that Google’s DNS servers were affected.
However, Greatfire.org also showed that some of the user traffic had been redirected to an IP address in the United States and more specifically to the Dynamic Internet Technology site which has links to the Falun Gong spiritual movement, which is heavily repressed in China. Greatfire.org believes the origin of the breakdown was due to a technical problem with the ‘Great Firewall’.
China regularly blocks sites whose content is critical of its government, including Facebook, Twitter and the New York Times. By wanting to block the Dynamic Internet Technology site, the Chinese authorities would have inadvertently rerouted the whole nation’s traffic, according to Greatfire.org.
This blog has drawn attention before to the lamentable lack of knowledge of certain bodies, e.g. the BBC and various newspapers, to the difference between translating and interpreting.
As the screenshot below shows, these bodies have now been joined by Capita Translation & Interpreting, that arm of the Crapita empire which is busy wasting public money by failing to provide interpreters – or those of good enough quality – for courts and tribunals under a contract with the Ministry of Justice (posts passim).
This exchange came into my Twitter timeline on the same day as the Law Gazette reports that Capita T&I has never managed to reach its 98% performance target under its Framework Agreement with the Ministry of Justice in the 2 years it has held the contract and just a few days before Ursula Brennan, Permanent Secretary at the MoJ, is due to appear before the House of Commons’ Public Accounts Committee as they examine the interpreting contract for a second time (posts passim).
As the Crapitards in charge of the Capita T&I are clearly confused by the difference between translators and interpreters, I can only recommend they too read my illustrated guide post.
Last year Mid Devon District Council took the daft and ungrammatical decision to ban the use of apostrophes – and other punctuation – in street signs (posts passim).
Mid Devon’s decision was justified by the pathetic excuse that removing punctuation was to “avoid confusion”.
This same line is now being trotted out by Cambridge City Council, in whose hallowed halls the city’s reputation for learning and scholarship appears has lost a battle with the dead hand of bureaucracy, as the Cambridge News reported on Friday.
According to the Cambridge News
Officers said they were following national guidance which warned apostrophes could lead to mistakes, particularly for emergency services.
Needless to say, with such a high profile city, the move has been criticised by language experts.
Quoted in the Daily Telegraph, Kathy Salaman, Director of the Cambridge-based Good Grammar Company said:
I know some people think apostrophes are superfluous but we really need them and I think it’s the first step on a slippery slope.
If councils are getting rid of them, what kind of message does that give out to students at schools?
Dropping apostrophes is pandering to the lowest denominator and while eradicating them anywhere is dreadful, it is particularly bad to do it in Cambridge.
Quite.
One must wonder what kind of English language teaching the officers of Cambridge City Council underwent at school, particularly since according to the British Council‘s grammar reference for people learning English, the rules for the use of apostrophes are “very simple”.
The British Council’s advice on using apostrophes is reproduced below for any passing council officers with responsibility for road and street signs.
Apostrophes
We use an apostrophe (‘) to show either possession or that there is a letter missing (e.g. the apostrophe in ‘she’s’ shows that there is a letter missing in ‘she is’)We use apostrophes with people or animals to show possession.
- My sister’s house.
- The dog’s blanket.
For things we use ‘of’ (the front of the car, NOT
the car’s front.)The position of the apostrophe depends on whether the noun is singular or plural. look at these two examples.
- My friend’s house. This is about one friend.
- My friends’ house. This is about two or more friends who share a house.
If a plural noun does not end in ‘s’ (e.g. men, people, children) we use ‘s to show possession.
- The children’s bedroom.
- A pair of women’s sunglasses.
We also use an apostrophe in some time expressions.
- two weeks’ holiday
- ten years’ experience
If people are really getting confused by apostrophes, doesn’t this indicate that English language teaching – particularly that related to punctuation – needs to be improved? After all, banning something you don’t understand is the action of a philistine.
The House of Commons’ Public Accounts Committee is keeping up the pressure on the Ministry of Justice over its disastrous courts and tribunals interpreting service with Capita Translation & Interpreting.
On Monday 27 January 2014 the Committee has summoned the MoJ’s Permanent Secretary, Ursula Brennan, to give evidence on ‘Interpreter services’, as shown by the following extract from the Parliamentary business calendar.
3.15pm Public Accounts
Subject: Treasury Minutes follow-up (i) Severance payments (ii) Interpreter services (iii) Rural broadband
Witness(es): Una O’Brien, Permanent Secretary, Department of Health, Sir David Nicholson KCB CBE, Chief Executive, NHS England and Mark Sedwill, Permanent Secretary, Home Office; Ursula Brennan, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Justice; Sue Owen, Permanent Secretary, Department for Culture, Media and Sport and Jon Zeff, Director and Programme Senior Responsible Office, Department for Culture, Media and Sport
In the Committee’s previous examination of interpreter services in 2012 neither the MoJ nor Capita exactly came away unscathed. On publication of its subsequent report, Committee Chair Margaret Hodge MP was scathing about the way the MoJ had managed the placing of its contract (posts passim), saying: “This is an object lesson in how not to contract out a public service.”
As for Ursula, her Civil Service biography on the MoJ’s website linked to above informs us that she spent most of her career in what is now the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). While there one of the areas in which she was involved was fraud (in that instance benefit fraud. Ed.). Evidence to date would tend to suggest that she is having difficulty finding it under her nose in her present department.
Update 26/1/14: Ursula Brennan will not now be appearing for the Ministry of Justice to assist the PAC with its continuing investigation of court interpreting; she has been replaced by Ann Beasley, Director-General of Finance at the Ministry of Justice and Peter Handcock CBE, Chief Executive of Her Majesty’s Court and Tribunal Service (HMCTS).
This is the third time Ursula Brennan has been due to appear before the PAC and has found something to do instead. One might get the impression she is frightened of Margaret Hodge et al., but I couldn’t possibly comment on that! 🙂
Hat tip: Louise Gough for the update.
Our friends at Capita seem to be having a bit of bother recently with a dearth of Vietnamese interpreters (posts passim).
On 10th January, I.V., a solicitor wrote the following post on RPSI Linguist Lounge.
I was a duty solicitor on Tuesday night we were instructed on a cannabis factory case. Due to the co-accused giving an age the police did not believe we weren’t interviewed until mid afternoon. A decent interpreter turned up on time (credit where credit due).
To the surprise of my rep our client and the “youngster” were charged and RIC. I am fortunate to have a Vietnamese member of staff so she came in to see him with me. No police booked interpreter attended and at lunchtime despite many requests the court finally looked in to it. They booked Capita at 2 – the use of my interpreter for the case was discounted. No interpreter attended and at 2 pm with no idea of what was happening the pair were remanded to today.
The youth was taken to a detention centre and my client to Winson Green – an adult prison!! He is 18. Last night the court clerk in our hearing booked a new interpreter. None has arrived and despite conflicting stories we are now told none has been booked. The DJ has decided that should my interpreter be present this afternoon then a pragmatic approach may be taken. So all day yesterday much of today all for me for the mileage!! Of course we did nothing to help!!!
We went to the crown court as I ascertained that a trial was taking place there with a Vietnamese interpreter. No, can’t use her. The 2 people in custody are highly confused and both allocated to incorrect institutions. Mine has already tried to dispense with my services. Luckily the approached solicitor on realising someone else instructed withdrew and let me know. This is how I make £’0000’s a year!!
We used my interpreter in the end.
The Italian government has made free software the default choice for public sector organisations, the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) reports. In a document (PDF, Italian) published last Wednesday, the Italian Digital Agency (Agenzia per l’Italia Digitale) issued rules saying that all the country’s government organisations must consider using free software before buying licences for proprietary programs.
The document, “Guidelines on comparative evaluation [of software]”, sets out a detailed method which public bodies must follow when deciding which software to use. They are required to look for suitable free software programs or choose software developed by the public sector. They may only consider procuring proprietary software no suitable programs of these types are available.
“There is no excuse. All public administrations must opt for free software or re-use whenever possible”, says FSFE General Counsel Carlo Piana, who was part of the committee that advised on the guideline. “Now free software and re-use are the norm, proprietary software the exception. This is the most advanced affirmative action in Europe so far. I’m so proud that Italy leads the way, for once”.
The document was authored by the Italian Digital Agency, which for the first time consulted representatives from the public sector, the free software community, and proprietary software makers.
Importantly, the new rules come with a mechanism to ensure they are followed. Both public bodies and members of the public can ask the Italian Digital Agency to check if a given organisation is following the correct procedure. Administrative courts can annul decisions that contravene these rules and, in the event of negligence, individual public servants may be held personally liable.
As an answer to a question from a Swedish politician the EU Commission has also confirmed ODF as a standard document format, Germany’s Linux Magazin writes. However, free software advocates are criticising the step as “not far-reaching enough”.
The Commission’s answer was given a few days ago. According to a report on Joinup, the EU’s public sector open source news site, EU Commission Vice-president Maroš Šefčovič himself responded to the written question and mentioned OOXML and ODF as minimum requirements for document exchange. Šefčovič maintains that this ensures no vendor lock-in exists or can occur. In addition, public sector organisations should support other file formats in accordance with the best effort principle, i.e. if this is practically possible.
Open source activists, such as the Open Forum Europe are describing the decision as overdue, but are criticising the EU for missing an opportunity for the EU to lead by example for not daring to stipulate ODF as a single open standard. Switzerland’s Open Systems Group welcomes this first step, Joinup states. Mathias Stürmer is even hoping that the Swiss government will follow suit, even though it is not within the EU; although it would definitely help to prompt other public sector organisations to make the change to ODF.
Friday’s Le Monde reports that Russian State security agency the FSO is going to step up its surveillance of bloggers and others who are critical of the Russian government.
While Russian state security agencies already have surveillance systems in use, the administration has decided “to entrust this part of the work to professional computer specialists“.
Quoting Izvestia, Le Monde states that an invitation to tender with a maximum budget of 31.8 mn. roubles (€700,000) has been issued for the procurement of a centralised data collection system for data published on the internet.
The subject of the invitation to tender is the creation of a system comprising a database of citizens who have a “negative” opinion of the government and the provision of a daily summary of publications concerning the president, his administration, the prime minister or even the opposition. The procurement of this system is reportedly not a case of “turning up the heat” by the authorities, but more enabling them to anticipate some events by the early detection of protests being organised (a likely story. Ed.)
Hardly a week goes by without concern being expressed about the quality of the interpreters provided to the police, courts and tribunals by Capita T&I. Interpreters working for the company are allegedly classified by ability in 3 tiers, from 1 to 3, with Tier 1 as the highest and 3 as the lowest.
On 9th January RPSI Linguist Lounge published the following post outlining solicitor Richard Lacey’s experience with the need for a Vietnamese interpreter at St Anne Street Police Station in Liverpool.
I attended St Annes [sic] Street Police Station in Liverpool today for an interview requiring a Vietnamese interpreter having confirmed at 8.10 that said interpreter was attending at 9.30. When I arrived I was told by the custody officer that ALS/Crapita had called at 9.20 to say the interpreter was no longer available and they wouldn’t be able to supply one until 7 this evening.
The custody officer was no more happy than I was and had instituted some sort of escalation procedure. He then explained to me that there are differing grades of interpreter available and they might have to go for someone less qualified. I now understand that the top level can interpret both written and spoken versions of the language. The next level down can only translate orally. I am unsure what the lowest level can do – point out Vietnam on a map?? Possible grounds for appeal if interpreter assistance in police interview was inadequate? Savings in the system? – ho ho ho!
Incidentally, prior to qualifying as a solicitor, I was a police custody officer and we rarely had difficulties using NRPSI system!
When will the Ministry of Justice admit failure, do the decent thing and terminate the contract with Capita T&I? Probably never, given the government’s failure to acknowledge its mistakes, leaving a government of a different colour to do the decent thing after the 2015 general election.
In the meantime the waste of money and time continues, as does the delay and denial of justice.