Geek's Revenge

I’m feeling a large proverbial weight off my chest now that my last chapter for Yemen has been submitted. I was telling Sarah, though, that I put lots of big SAT words in it out of something resembling spite. The reason for this isn’t that I want anyone to read what I’ve written and exclaim “holy crap she’s wicked smaht!”, because I really don’t even know how you’d say that in Arabic. If at all. It’s because, and I almost feel bad typing this, and I definitely feel juvenile, but it’s because the contract was written specifying that the official language for the reports was to be English. Despite the fact that virtually none of the government people who would have to read and approve this document, like, oh, say, the governor, speak, read, or in any way understand English.

Nonetheless, it had to be in English, and reports completed before I got there were criticized for the quality of their English by some non-native English speakers – fair enough, one can have mastery of a language that isn’t one’s own. This was something at which TL took tremendous offense, by the way. Being the only native speaker ever to be on the project, upon my arrival I was given the task of editing every single word that was produced. This was fine, and I think I did a good job. Apparently I did, because comments received on the NEXT round of reports stated that the English was too good and they couldn’t understand it.

I’ve got your substrate degradation, eutrophic lakes, and deleterious effects to groundwater right here, Buddy.