We work with translators all over the globe and we wanted to share what we know about The Phenomenon of Ice Chipping: Lessons for Translators.
INGCO International, Inc. is a translation, interpretation and global marketing firm located in the heart of the United States, in the lovely state of Minnesota. A lot of locals like to call it “MinneSNOWta” due to the massive amounts of snow we typically have in the winter months. And this is precisely why I got to thinking about this blog and The Phenomenon of Ice Chipping: Lessons for Translators.
If I were a translator living in, say, Brazil, and I happened to be walking through my neighborhood on any given March afternoon, say like today, I would be shocked and dismayed to see what in the world goes on here in Minnesota. I call it The Phenomenon of Ice Chipping. Yes, ice chipping. Not the kind of ice chipping that fancy bartenders do when preparing custom concocted cocktails. Not the kind of ice chipping that caterers prepare for fancy weddings to create punch fountains. No folks, the kind of ice chipping I’m referring to is the kind where we crazy Minnesotans head outside once the weather hits about 30°F to start chipping away at ice; ice that accumulates after a long hard winter and forms small but mighty ice skating rinks on sidewalks, streets, boulevards, paths, parking lots, alleys –heck, just about anywhere where people are expected to walk without killing themselves by slipping and falling on the, you guessed it! Ice.
Well we love to talk about ice chipping here in Minnesota. And we discuss ice-chipping techniques as if our life depended on it. And we discuss ice-chipping paraphernalia, and compare and contrast the variety of chippers, which what one could potentially confuse as a weapon. And we discuss remedies that hypothetically can avoid the entire presence of the ice formation in the first place. Alas, none of those remedies work so we are humbled to fall back on the tried and true art of ice chipping. And we chip away until our backs and shoulders are so sore we cannot chip anymore. But we chip so that we do not fall and break a hip, and we chip because we can, and we chip because we must.
This blog is dedicated to all of our amazing translators that live in warm and exotic destinations across the globe that will never have the need to chip ice, ever.