Lost in Translation

The Associated Press today reported that Iran’s President has ordered all government and cultural bodies to use newly identified Persian words or phrases to replace Western words that have crept into the Iranian lexicon. “Pizzas”, for example, will now be known as “elastic loaves.”

Aside from the fact that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad probably has more pressing matters to deal with right now, I think he’s onto something that could be of value here in North America. Not to replace words with foreign origins, but replacing the jargon, buzzwords and other elitist dialects conceived on the part of the technocracy, as John Raulston Saul would put it. Specifically, if I were Canada’s Minister of Propaganda:

Dial tone, 9-11, system access, system connection, network maintenance and other fine print line items that come on your phone or cell phone bill would now be known as extra profits. I mean really…can I opt out of the dial tone feature?

Café lattes, moccaccinos, frappucinos, macchiatos and correttos would now be known simply as coffee. Coffee with lots of milk, coffee with caramel, with lots of whipped cream – you name it, but just call it coffee.

Mobile phones, wireless devices, PDAs, palm-tops and blackberrys would now be known as cell phones. Within the next year they’re all going to have the same features anyways.

Equity ratings such as buy, sell, outperform, underperform, hold, market perform, overweight, neutral or strong buy would know be known as your guess is as good as mine. I’ve read repeatedly that companies with sell ratings consistently outperform those with buy ratings, which kinda begs the question…

Trans fats, saturated fats, sucrose, fructose, glucose, electrolytes, essentially fatty acids, cholesterol, MSG and other ingredients would be known simply as good food or bad food. Especially for simple folk like me, it just gets too complicated otherwise.