An alphabet of favourite words

I've been thinking about my favourite words and decided to come up with an alphabet of them.  These are words that I enjoy the sound of and enjoy forming with my mouth, not words that mean something.  My list will probably change from week to week so this is today's ideas.  Here we go:

Ambulatory
Bees
Clunge
Debris
Effie, Emberella
Feegle
Gezellig
Horatio
Imbibe, Intrepid
Jovial
Keel
Lung
Maelstrom
Nebulous
Oratory
Pickle
Quiver
Replete
Sunflower, Susurration
Trousers
Umberella
Vichyssoise
Waggle
Xenon
Yucca
Zlotys

Pregnancy, stillbirth, I've written a lot...

So I guess I should say something.

I feel really exposed publishing all those pregnancy posts.  I am actually a really private person and I don't like discussing my feelings, certainly not face to face, although I can manage it online.

As I said in the first post, I published this stuff because people need to know that babies die, and that this goes on in the midst of the rest of life, and that somehow, the rest of life goes on, whether we want it to or not.  I still read comics.  I still piss about on twitter and tumblr.  I go to work.  I see some friends.  I eat and I shit and I sleep and I breathe.  My body forces me too.  Grief sits alongside all that.  Losing your baby... everything has changed and nothing has changed.  People need to understand that.  Just because I go on with normal everyday life does not mean I am normal, that I have forgotten, that I am not hurting.  I will continue to hurt and I will miss my son until my dying breath and I just have to learn how to deal with that.

The second reason for posting is that others with rainbow pregnancies, or wanting rainbows, are probably looking for similar experiences and evidence of how life continues with all this stuff happening too.  I know that's what  I wanted last year.  I didn't want specialist baby loss books.  I wanted to know how this rawness could fit alongside everyday activities.

I deliberately did not blog C's pregnancy, because there are hundreds of first pregnancy blogs out there and I had nothing to add.  I also wanted things kept private.  I still want things kept private. There are things I will never ever ever post on here.  But now, there is a need for people to talk about rainbow babies and to see how it fits with the rest of their lives.  I have not been able to find any blogs about this that are not exclusively about this, and so I want more. So there must be others who want more as well.  So maybe I can help.

Of course, writing like this, for others, gives me a more objective feel, it sets me outside of my situation, and that helps because then it hurts less, for a bit.

One thing this will not become is a campaigning blog.  My son is worth more than that and I will not have him reduced to a slogan or a movement.

So a few words on language.
Please do not ever refer to my son, or any other children, as 'a stillbirth'.  Say that he died.  Or say he 'was stillborn', or that he was born still.  Referring to him as 'a stillbirth' is dehumanising.  He is not an event, a thing which just happened to me and then left.  He is a person and he deserves to be recognised as such.

Also, the word stillbirth does not really convey what happened - people don't understand that it means the child died in utero.  By referring to him as 'a stillbirth' (a noun?) you are making the circumstances of his birth the important thing, and people can file it in their minds without really understanding.  By saying he was stillborn (a verb?) you make him the subject and you describe how he was born (except you don't really because children die at all sorts of stages, before and during labour, and after, quite regularly).  That's important.  But best of all, you should say he died and then say he was stillborn.

I thought quite carefully about how to title these posts.  I decided on pregnancy after stillbirth rather than pregnancy after loss, or rainbow pregnancy, or second pregnancy, because I wanted it to be absolutely clear.  I wanted there to be no confusion.  I want people to come across this and go 'oh, stillbirth, that means they died in utero, that means babies die before they are born'.  If I titled these posts pregnancy after loss people might think that he died at a few hours or a few days old.  Those situations are just as terrible, but they aren't my situation.

I'll just say something about miscarriage - I hate that word.  Everyone knows about first tri miscarriage, but very few know what it involves.  No one knows about second tri miscarriage.  You have to labour if your baby dies after 14 weeks.  If your baby dies and you deliver him or her at 23 weeks and 6 days, your baby is classed as a miscarriage.  If your baby dies and you deliver him or her at 24 weeks exactly, your baby is classed as being stillborn.

No one can tell me that the baby is less of a baby for being born a day earlier.

Miscarriage is a vastly misunderstood term and doesn't convey the horror of your baby dying.  As far as I'm concerned your baby is a baby as soon as you decide it is, whether that's 5 weeks, 15 weeks or 25 weeks.  'Miscarriage' seems to reduce them to being abstracts when really, if they die after 16 weeks you've probably already heard their heartbeat and felt them move.  And yet they are never legally classed as a person.  I realise the 24 week thing in the UK is linked to viability and also probably our abortion laws, and someone more sophisticated than me will have to come up with a solution, but it seems to me that the term miscarriage is a cruel one.

The acclaim given to sign language interpreters

The Limping Chicken has today published a post titled 'Are Interpreters like #SignGuy, who sign during public emergencies, going viral for the right reasons?'.

The article goes on to discuss the hearing population's reactions to sign language interpreters they deem as particularly animated and amusing, and the reasons why the signing might be so expressive.  Please go read it.  There are linguistic reasons why some signing is bigger, more animated and larger than life, I guess.

I got to thinking whether hearing people would be so interested in a Deaf person's signing.  Would a Deaf person on telly get the same sort of social media fans, would they get a hashtag dedicated to them.  In my experience, hearing people, unless they are involved in the Deaf community and or learning BSL, have a special sort of admiration for Interpreters that they don't have interpreters or translators of other languages.  Part of this is the obvious beauty of BSL, when a language is visual it's easier to appreciate than a spoken language (or is that just me?).  But hearing people seem to have special credence and admiration for sign language terps, beyond the visual nature of it.

I think it's driven by the pretty low awareness people have of sign languages, so when they do pay attention they are impressed, and then they think a sign language is either really hard or really easy to learn, in a way they don't apply to spoken languages.  You'll see loads of people claiming that they can understand interpreters on the telly.  Unless you've studied the language you can't.  People don't do this with French or Japanese.

Then people seem to think that BSL Interpreters are performing a selfless act.  They think of the profession and skills as being really rewarding.  I used to volunteer in the local Deaf Centre's cafe.  I had someone tell me that must be really rewarding.  Erm, I served teas and coffee??  That's not rewarding.  I volunteered because it was a good break from my regular job and I really enjoyed the social side of it.  I liked chatting with the regulars.  I got far more from them than they got from me, not least because I can make really bad cups of tea and it took me months to remember the sign for kit-kat.

Some people can't see that interpreters get satisfaction from just doing a job well.  They don't see the intricacies of the job, or the difficulties, or the hard situations a terp might be places into.  They don't consider the pleasure in finding accurate interpretations for complex concepts.

So because of this they don't regard interpreting as a real job.  Yet when faced with an actual Deaf person who used BSL they'd be completely stuck and they wouldn't know what to do.  They'd feel awkward.  They wouldn't know how to speak to them.

I'm not quite sure where I'm going with this or how logical it is.  I think I'm just a bit put out that despite some peoples interest in BSL they wouldn't think to learn it or think of Deaf people as normal people.

Meanderings on language

I keep using the word idiot to mean stupid. I know there’s been a lot of discourse in online activist circles about the use of ablest language, including how ‘idiot’ is used to mean stupid. I have come to the conclusion that idiot can be (is) offensive to quite a few people because idiot is/was (not sure which) a medical term for people who are..and here’s where I fall down, because I don’t know the right term. I want to say retarded, special needs or slow. What is right? Retard certainly isn’t, I’m pretty sure retarded isn’t either. There are probably loads of cognitive disorders/disabilities /syndromes that these terms are used to mean, and those folk who aren’t affected them probably gloss them all into retard/idiot/slow/special needs.

But back to idiot. I use it to mean stupid. And to me, with my limited knowledge, that is what it means. If someone is a bit slow they are stupid – not bright, not clever. I think where using idiot gets offensive is where it is used to dehumanise people, to outright say or imply that they are worth less than others because they are not as intelligent. That is plainly wrong.

And again, if people use special needs/retarded/slow to refer to a range of developmental abnormalities as the same thing, that again becomes problematic. I don’t know enough about this area of human experience to say what the different syndromes/disabilities etc are.  I know I wouldn’t call those with these disabilities an idiot – I don’t know if I’d call anyone other than myself an idiot to be honest, cos I don’t like abusing/insulting people (at least not to their face).

I was going to end this post by saying that I will continue to use idiot because I don’t use it in a dehumanising manner to other people, but if someone found it offensive I would stop using it around them. But then, someone could be reading this blog (it is in a public space after all) and could be finding it offensive, so I’d just be undermining my intention. I would be effectively making excuses for myself and putting the blame for the offence onto the person who is offended, and that’s wrong. The offender needs to take responsibility for their actions, I feel.

Where am I going with this? I don’t really know. Other than that I shouldn't use the word idiot in public.

Watch Your Language

About a week or so ago I went to a conference named Watch Your Language.  It was for BSL interpreters and CSWs (neither of which I am, but I have decided that I will make sure that in September 2013 I will be enrolled on my interpreter training) and was held in London.  I do start my BSL level 3 in September (finally!) so I figured this conference would be good experience for me.

It was.  Days like these improve my receptive skills, knowledge of the Deaf world and understanding of the professional side of things.

In the morning there were presentations on the role of the interpreter and CSW, and they discussed how to be a Deaf ally whilst remaining professional.  The second speech was on Deaf people's perceptions of interpreters, the role of deaf clubs and the advancement of technology and how this has changed things in the Deaf community.

Lastly there was a presentation on choosing interpreters, and how much choice Deaf people should have in picking an terp.  Does it matter if the terp is registered?  How does registration affect co-working?  How effective is the complaints procedure?  How do terps maintain competency?  So many things to think about!

These presentations were all in BSL and voiced over into English.  This was particularly interesting as I have recently gone on 3 voiceover workshops (run by Deaf Matters), which were probably more useful (in terms of working) than any of my language classes have been.  Anyway, I could see how the professionals worked when doing voiceover and I was able to recognise some of the techniques we were taught on the workshops.

The afternoon consisted of 2 workshops.  One on Visual Language, what is it, how does it differ from BSL, does it have structure etc.  Very interesting discussion but unfortunately my receptive skills failed me at critical points.  Very embarrassing.  There was lots of food for thought offered up in this session and I still haven't come to a conclusion about what visual language is!


The final session of the day was on interpreting English idioms to BSL.  Considering I don't always understand the meaning of the idiom when presented into English, this was a very useful topic as I got to learn things!  The problem with idioms is they are specific to a language and culture, and their literal and figurative meaning is entirely different.  For example, dime a dozen, stuck between a rock and a hard place, drop in the ocean.

It was a very good day and just reinforced to me how much I miss working with Deaf people.  Oh well, I'll get there in the end!

In which I understand a metaphor

Right, my twitter followers will have seen me gushing about Animal Man recently.  I finally read Grant Morrion's run, then devoured the other 60 odd issues in that run.  It's awesome.  Especially Morrison's run.

One question tho.  It's about the first few issues in the first trade.  Ellen gets attacked and nearly raped in the woods.  The bad guy kills a cat, but the cat's litter survive.  Ellen and her daughter take them back home and try to nurse them back to health.  Ellen gets very upset when one by one the kitten's die, but then she's then very relieved when one survives.

Now, I don't really pick up on metaphors that often.  I only got the Karolina Dean as a lesbian and a living rainbow thing earlier this year when James Ashelford pointed it out to me.  So, if you think about certain slang terms for lady bits, and a colloquial name for a cat, am I seeing a metaphor in Ellen's predicament where there is none?  Do y'all reckon it was a deliberate metaphor?

And isn't it just a bit crass??

Or is it just me?

FIFA blocking distribution of condoms at World Cup

Originally seen on Shakesville, which links to this Guardian article.

The Guardian explains it thus:


"Fifa's tight restrictions on venue, where only official sponsors are allowed, will prevent fans gaining access to the condoms and to crucial health information, Aids organisations warned.
"To date Fifa has not permitted any civil society organisation to distribute HIV- or health-related information and Fifa has not provided any written confirmation that condoms may be distributed at stadia and within the fan-fests," the groups said in a statement. "This is despite the fact that commercial sponsors selling alcohol will have dedicated spaces available." "

Various AIDS groups and Shakesville refer to this as FIFA banning distribution of condoms - I am not so sure this is the case.  I think that FIFA are only allowing sponors to advertise/distribute stuff so that they can make maximum money out of it.  They won't make money from civil societies distributing condoms, so to me, I understand it more as FIFA blocking, not banning free condoms.  Greedy bastards - that's capitalism for you.

(And yes, I do think identifying and using the right terms are important, because language is important).

Either way, it's a pretty disgraceful thing to do, especially as:

"South Africa has the world's largest number of (People living with AIDS), with an estimated 5.7 million people infected – about one in every five adults. There are around 1,400 new HIV infections every day and nearly 1,000 AIDS deaths."  (Filched from the Shakesville post).

We already know that thousands of women are going to be transported to South Africa to meet the demands of male football fans who decide they 'need' to buy sex.  AIDS and HIV is huge problem is all of South Africa.  FIFA should be taking some responsibility for this.  But I guess I must be asking too much when I request that people take some responsibilty for the world and the people around them.

Superhero sign names

Continuing on from my previous post, I give you more ideas of what sign names I would give the various superheroes.  I've also now edited the previous post to give pictures of each hero.  Makes more sense that way.

Regarding Guy Gardner, I've now decided that Guy's sign name should be linked to his lapels, as that is a very distinctive jacket he's wearing.  I do believe no other GL has a uniform quite like it.

How about Power Girl?

It would be the shape of the boob window.  No question.

As for her civilian name, a pun on Starr seems easy, so the sign for star then, whilst you lipspeak her first name.

As for the Wonder family.  Take Wonder Woman:

Before I said you'd just sign Wonder+Woman.  But to make it an actual sign name, you could trace the W shape on your chest and lipspeak either Diana, Wondy, or Wonder Woman.

For Donna Troy:

Again, easy.  Do the sign for sparkle all over your torso and lipspeak Donna.

For Wonder Girl (Cassie) I think it would very much depend on her outfit.  For an early version of her costume:

Whether she's wearing her blond hair short or she's wearing a wig, the goggles are a mainstay.  So let's make the sign for goggles (either on her forehead or her eyes), and lipspeak Wonder Girl or Cassie.

That's all for today's lessons, I'll be back in a few weeks with more!

Words that should be used more

Words that I particularly like that just aren't used enough:

Fractious
Cross (as in I'm quite cross.  Not as in a cross of wood)
Susurus
L'espirit de L'escalier  (ok so that's more of a phrase)
Amorous
Sigh
Breathy
Masticate  (I'm actually undecided about this one, it's rather harsh but also somehow exacting, and good)
Thigh
Looting

What are your favourite words?  What would you like to see, read or hear more of?

Nick Griffin thinks London has undergone an ethnic cleansing. Has it bollocks.

The British National Party, or BNP (fascist right wing racist organisation) was on Question Time last night.
Question Time is a UK show put on by the BBC where politicians from varying parties are invited on to debate the issues of the day.  Since the BNP have an MEP they were invited on.  More on the ethics of this later.  I am watching it a day late on the iplayer, and having read stuff about it earlier today I am rather revulsed.  Apparently Mr Griffin (BNP leader) thinks that London has been subjected to ethnic cleansing, presumably because it's not all white and he has to see asian, indian and black faces when he leaves his house.  I rather think he should look up the meaning of the phrase.  Make no mistake, he is a racist fascist following nazi ideals and the BNP are a very dangerous party.
I assume my UK readers are all well aware of this event, but I feel my foreign readers should also be made aware.

Here follows a live blogpost of his appearence on Question Time.

Jack straw (Labour) states first of all that the BNP is a party based on race.  Good for him
I love Jack Straw.
If Churchill didn't like immigrants or muslims that doesn't make the BNP OK.
I like the audience.  A lot.
Saying you don't have a conviction for holocaust denial doesn't mean you never denied it.  Prick
I love Bonnie Greer.
And Chris Hulne.
I really don't understand how people can hate others that much - how can you loathe someone based on their skin colour?  It's inconceivable to me.  I (unfortunately) understand unintentional racism, it's tied up with privilege, it's tied up with being part of an overwhelmingly white and racist society.  Now that don't make it right, which is why I try damn hard to overcome any internalised prejudice I have.  But I really don't understand this vicious hate people have.
Saying Nazis hate you doesn't prove you aint one.  Ugh, you were on a video with the had of the KKK.  Apparently the head of a 'non violent one'.  Ugh Ugh Ugh.
Oh god, I'm sickened.  He won't explain why he's allegedly changed his mind about holocaust denial.
Have you guys ever been to Auschwitz or the other holding or concentration camps?  They're hideous.
Don't you dare pull the women's rights crap.
There is nothing Christian about his values.
OK I like tory lady now.  A lot.
Shit, this audience is good.
OK, now Jack Straw is being a bit of a prat over an immigration questioon.  So's the tory lady.
Tory lady is Sayeeda Warsi.  Maybe she's not a prat.
One lady has made a distinction between Afro-Carribean and African-Carribean.  I'm ashamed to say i;ve never thought of the use of the Afro-Carribean before.  Mind you, in my work sector we tend to use the phrase BME communities - Black and minority ethnic communities.  When we break down ethnicity we use Black British, Black African, Black Carribean etc.  That's dictated to us by the requirements of our funding bodies, usually local government or regional authorities.
Bollocks you think skin colour is irrelevant.
Shit, you just said America Red Indian.  Prick.
Ahh my god white people are not discriminated against in this country!  There is no black conspiracy.  You fucker.
Us white folks are not subject to an ethnic genocide.  Fucker.
Oh gods I love Bonnie Greer.  Giving Griffin a history lesson, hurrah!  She's deputy chair of the British Museum and has invited him along to have a lesson or two.
Yep, send Griffin to the colourless landscape of the South Pole.  I wholeheartedly concur.
Yep, go tory lady.  Too right there's no such thing as a bogus asylum seeker.
What the fuck is wrong with change?
A ha! A question on whether Jan Moir's article should have been published.
Bonnie Greer reminds me of BSG President lady.
Oh there's a surprise.  Tory lady is homophobic.  And a liar.  Don't like her anymore.  And she's the shadow minister for community cohesion!!  What, are non hetero folks not part of the community?
Oh Fuck You Nick Griffin.  Fuck you.
Being homophobic is not 'the way it is'.  Oh, the militant gays can't preach homosexuality to schoolchildren can they?  It's perverse is it?  Fuck you.
The Labour party has done more for gay rights than any other party.  They may have a lot of other things wrong with them, but they have done a lot for the likes of me.
Oh.  He thinks the BBC is an unpleasent ultra leftist institution.  And he's shaking. Good.
Oooh, Jacqui Smith is on next week.

Oh my god he's such a total cunt.  And there's not a signed version of the show???**

Arggh.  Now I feel unclean.  As to whether he should have been allowed on it or not.
Unfortunately the BNP do have a member of the European Parliament in place.  Which menas they have a 'right' to be on Question Time. Because they are a 'legitimate' political party.  I don't understand how they are legal, and I think it's very well saying that oh well Griffin has now shown himself up, but we can say that because we're all naturally left wingers anyway. 
I did have some more in depth thoughts about this, but my recall and brain power has now failed.  So instead, visit Deeplyflawedbuttrying.  She says it much better than I could.

If you want to view the programme you can find it here.  It will be available for the next 7 days.

**I take it back.  It maybe be available later, but it needs to be broadcast and signed first

New job!

I have a new job :D  It involves using BSL on a daily basis :D    So no real post tonight, I'm off to the pub for a celebratory bevvy!

Superhero sign names - as part of Learn to Sign week

As it's Learn to Sign week I thought now would be a good time for a post combining comics and signing.  Here we go.

In British Sign Language we have something called sign names.  They are basically nick names and are a short hand way to refer to someone, as an alternative to fingerspelling their name.  One of my friends likes cake, so her sign name is the sign for cake with the lip pattern of her name.  My sign name is the sign for reading, (flat open palms with fingers together, palms face up, fingers slightly overlapping and move the hands round in one circular motion), with the lip pattern of my name, because I read all day, every day.  One of my old teachers name was based on his hairstyle, so it;s been a pony tail or a mohawk with his name.  You get the idea.

So I got to thinking what would the sign names of the superheroes be?  Signingtime, an American site has a forum which asks this very question.  That is however the only site I can find that deals with this issue.  If anyone knows of any others, please let me know in the comments.

In the UK, the sign for superhero in general is your right arm stuck out in a fist, a la flying.  That also works for Superman, and Supergirl would be the main sign + girl. I expect that Batman is Bat plus Man.  Buffy the vampire slayer is 'B+vampirefangs+a staking action'.  I expect Wonder Woman has her own sign.


As I don't know any Deaf comics fans I cannot ask them what signs they use, so I will speculate.  Sign names are never official anyway, they are given by those who know you, or you give one to yourself.  I will approach this from the point of view of what will those people who know and love the heros, e.g. friends and family, use.

Let us start with Bart Allen.

We cannot simply give him the multichannel sign of speeding-off-into-the-distance, because that could be used for all speedsters.  We shouldn't really use Impulse or Kid Flash as that's his actual code name.  I suppose the general public could trace the lightening logo on their chest, to mean Flash, and Kid Flash could be Flash+kid, but that isn't distinctive enough to mean Bart.  I would be tempted to go with his big feet or his hair.  No one else in the DCU has feet and hair quite like him, and I don't think he would be offended by it.  You could sign big-feet-racing-forward and provide the lip pattern for Bart.  I think that's fairly apt.

How about Speedy (Mia)?

Well, you can't simply sign speedy, or fast, because in all honesty that is far more likely to be associated with the Flash type heroes in the DCU.  Speedy's hero thing is her arrow shooting, but I find the sign for bow and arrow rather unwieldy, so would prefer not to use it.  I also would prefer to choose something that would be distinct from RoySpeedy, so it needs to be feminised or be something completely different.  Considering Mia's cocky personality I think I will go with the sign for Cheeky.  I'm sure Ollie would agree.


Black Canary.

 For her public name, I'd go with black+canary.  Black is a thumbs up hand shape swiped along your cheek from near your ear to off your face by your mouth.  Canary is a local sign in Norfolk, our football team is nicknamed the Canaries (these birds have a long association with the city, due to the influx of Dutch traders in earlier centuries).  As such, both Canary and Norwich are the same - the bird sign over your left breast where the football logo is on a shirt.
As for her private name, for 80s hero Dinah we could trace the headband shape+name.  For florist Dinah we could do flower+name.  For a joke we could do computer+name.  Although that might be best for Barbara.  As a really boring sign we could do blonde+name, or martial arts+name.

Guy gets the bowl haircut sign, no question and no matter how long he's had a new style for.  Batman has his own special sign for Guy though -  falling over (as in being knocked out)+name.

The possibilities are endless!

Signing, translation and Christianity

I’m a member of a Sign Choir. In a nutshell this means that we translate songs, usually church songs, into British Sign Language (BSL), and perform them. Some of us mouth the words as we are performing, some don’t. We definitely don’t sing out loud. Instead, there will either be a stereo playing the songs or there we will perform next to a vocal choir.

I have been a member of this for about 9 months now and I love doing it. I’ve been learning BSL for about 5 years, which doesn’t mean I’m proficient or fluent, far from it, but being part of the choir is a brilliant way to keep learning, as well as being just straight up fun.

For those that don’t know a lot about Ddeafness or sign languages I shall elucidate.

Sign languages are not based on spoken languages. They are wholly separate and have their own grammar, syntax and everything else that goes to make up a language. They are most definitely languages, and are certainly not just a series of mimes or gestures. There are words and phrases in signed languages that have no translation to the countries equivalent spoken language.

The structure and grammar of sign languages varies form country to country. In fact, each country has it’s own sign language. BSL is entirely different from Irish Sign Language (ISL), American Sign Language (ASL), French, German, Brasilian, Norwegian etc sign language. However, the languages may be related. Like you can trace the roots of French and English to a common point, I believe that BSL and Australian Sign Language (Auslan) have some aspects in common. But, if I were to go to Australia and start using BSL, Auslan users wouldn’t understand me. For another example, the ASL fingerspelt alphabet is on one hand whereas the BSL fingerspelt alphabet is done on 2 hands. There are signs that exist in ASL that don’t exist in BSL, and vice versa. There is an international sign language but I think it’s about as commonly used as Esperanto.

There are also regional variations in BSL. For example, the number systems change between where I live and the next county just a 1 hour train ride away. So, it’s complicated. You can’t learn BSL from books you need to be taught in person, preferably by a Deaf person.

Regarding the distinction between Deafness and deafness, this is to do with the language that the individual uses, whether they are part of Deaf culture or hearing culture and partly concerned with the type of hearing loss. Typically, Deaf people are profoundly deaf, use BSL as their first language and are fully part of Deaf culture. They tend to be very proud of being Deaf and wouldn’t necessarily want to be hearing, given the option.

On the other hand, deaf people are typically deafened or hard of hearing, use English as their first language and are part of hearing culture. At least as much as you can be when you’re in a culture that can disable you at nearly every step, but that’s my own personal view.

Should you be interested in finding out more about Ddeaf issues I have a list of online Ddeaf resources in my recommended list. Have a look on the right hand side of this blog.

Oh, yes, I should say that I am hearing, so if anyone who is more involved with or knowledgable about Ddeaf issues is reading this and thinks I’m talking crap, then I apologise, and if you let me know I’ll do my best to rectify the information given.

Back to the Sign Choir. I am thoroughly loving it. There are 4 of us in the choir, with an occasional fifth member, 2 of us are Christian, 2 not. The occasional fifth member is spiritual. 1 of us is deaf, or Deaf, I wouldn’t like to speak for her. The Choir leader is Deaf and I believe is a Lay Pastor for the Church. My mother tried to bring me and my sister up Catholic, we’ve been confirmed and went to Sunday School and all that, but we never really believed it. Now, although I believe in Gods, I am not Christian and highly unlikely to convert. I haven’t been regularly involved with Church stuff since I was about 10. The other regular, non-Christian member, doesn’t know a lot about Christianity. So between me and her there are enough questions about what the whole shebang means, even as much as working out how to translate the songs.

You see, when you translate songs, it’s not as easy as simply picking out the first literal translation you think of. You’ve got to fit the signs into the rhythm, make sure they also fit the mood of the song, and sometimes translate what can appear to be abstract poetry. You also don’t tend to translate to pure BSL because sometimes that just doesn’t fit the song. You have to find a halfway house and you have to present the lyrics in a manner in which Deaf people will understand. To do this you’ve got to really understand what the English version of the songs means.

For example, recently we did Morning Has Broken. Lovely song, dead easy to translate until you get to the final verse:

Mine is the sunlight!
Mine is the morning
born of the one light
Eden saw play!
Praise with elation,
praise every morning,
God’s recreation
Of the new day!

The problem lines were ‘Mine is the morning, born of the one light Eden saw play’. To translate literally you would sign:
Mine morning
Childbirth one light
God see play (use the sign for children playing, not a theatre play)

But the song doesn’t mean literal childbirth, or playing like children playing. It’s an odd lyric, like poetry, and to me at least, isn’t immediately clear on what it’s talking about.

Typically, this song came up when our most learned Christian and hearing member was on holiday. She came back, and after 4 or 5 weeks of discussions and thinking, and getting second opinions, we have come up with the following way of translating it:

Mine morning
Start one light
Garden can happen

See the difference?

I’ve started translating songs at home for fun. The first one I did was Lord of the Dance. I’m very proud of myself for working this one out and I shall take it back to Choir next week and see what the others think of my translation. There’s a few areas I’m stuck on, mostly to do with how to sign Pharisee, and the line ‘they ripped and they stripped and they strung me up high’. I’m having trouble working out how to show the context it’s in. But I’m pretty happy with the rest of it.

I’ve also had a go at translating some Manics songs and a Wildhearts song. When songwriters choose words to rhyme and use metaphors, it gets tricky. You wouldn’t translate ‘it’s raining cats and dogs’ as Rain Cat Dog, because that would mean animals were literally dropping out of the sky. Instead you’d use the sign for rain combined with the appropriate facial expression and also use other non manual features. In this way you would indicate that the weather is pissing it down.

If you want to view some BSL interpreted songs on Youtube I have some listed in the Ddeaf resources section of my links. Go check them out.

(This is probably the last post of mine for a week. I'm away this weekend and am likely to be working late Wed and Thurs. As I have no posts lined up I'll be out of commission for a while. Roll on July I say.)

So much for one blog post a day

Currently listening to: Reef: Rides and Replenish

Mood: Foul

I really was intending to blog regularly, even daily, this month, but then life happened. Work hasn’t let up all week, it’s now Sunday and I’ve had to work at home doing finance stuff - my least favourite activity at the best of times but even worse on the weekend – and the next week promises to be equally hectic.

I had to go shopping for bloody bridesmaid dresses yesterday, when the bride and other bridesmaids are 200 miles away and the city is *already* rammed for Christmas and we still haven’t got a sodding decision. I very much dislike shopping in the real world.

I have yet again completely failed to practice for the sign choir I attend, so that’ll go well tomorrow. I just need to learn the English words then the signs will flow easy, and who knew Mistletoe and Wine* would be such a bugger to translate?

I haven’t been able to properly catch up on new blog posts so haven’t felt like I’ve had a chance to relax, and I’ve had a friend stay all weekend and so feel deficient in my comic reading time (yes I know, that makes me a very selfish person, so bite me).

And the Misty’s gig I had tickets to see on Wednesday has been cancelled. *scowl*

So yes, I’m in a foul mood. Grrr.

On the plus side, Ami’s blog informs me that Doomsday is going to be in Smallville this week so that’s exciting. Now I just need to download all the episodes…

Aquaman is going well. At least until Peter David stopped writing it and now I’m just suspicious of change. Also, Mera? That:


is NOT a dress. Fully clothed to…scraps in one issue. Yes, well done on respecting your female characters there.

I did see an interview with excellent and wholly wonderful Lauren Laverne (ex Kenickie) on the Guardian website earlier, where she rationalises her vegetarianism vs wearing animal skins with the following:

"I couldn't have an animal die just so I could eat it. The way I think about it is if I was to be killed I would rather be worn than eaten. I think eating something is such an impermanent way to express a life. To be minced up and put in a burger is a bit of an inglorious ending, but to wind up as a pair of Louis Vuitton shoes, well, then your death has meant something. That's how I see it."
And it’s nice to see Russia observing due democratic processes yet again. That strikes me as very similar to the 1917 elections whereby the Bolsheviks were not voted in en masse, so decided to abolish the elections and begin the start of a 70 year dictatorial regime.

Yours snarlingly



*Not my choice of songs. I want to do Lord of the Dance.

Darwin fraud

This Darwin fraud case..from what I can tell both of them hatched the plan. They are both responsible for defrauding the insurance companies and for lying to their sons and friends. And yet, nearly every headline I've seen has focused on how Anne lied on what she did. One of the Guardian's headlines reported the story as a couple facing fraud and being found guilty. Yet so many of the other newspapers headlines that I've seen, (mostly tabloids), have reported the trial verdict as Wife gets convicted, not Husband and Wife.

Hmm, I wonder why that is?

And from one of The Guardian's articles, a quote from the Detective Inspector who led the investigation:

"For her to say 'I had to go along with it because John told me', I just don't know how any mother could do that. She was out and out despicable and I don't have the time of day for her."

People, you disgust me.
If you want a better written post on this go here. I'm too fucking stressed to think straight.

Language and sexual violence

A couple of posts I've read today that caught my attention.
One from Karen Healy's blog: Girls read Comics (and they're pissed)
She's talking about Garth Ennis' the Pro. I must admit that when I read this I wasn't overly impressed. But one thing that Karen has said really struck me:

The thing about prostitution – and here and henceforth I’m referring specifically to female prostitutes – is that the culture of the West goes on and on about sexy being great and empowering for women.()...and then the worst thing you can say to a woman is to call her a whore.

This is part of what I was trying to say in my earlier post - Language, Sex, Wonder Woman. or at least I was thinking it in my head or something. I don't know, this has been a particularly crappy week.

Anyway, the second post I saw on this topic was from the f word. My brain's too fried to read or take in all of it but it's an interesting article. I think.

Language, violence, Wonder Woman

So, I've just been away visiting some friends overnight and somehow the talk got onto my feminism. Gee, I can't think how. Possibly because it was me talking.
Anyway, my friend is a linguistics professor so we talked about gendered language. I spoke about how I really hated swear words like slut, slag, whore etc. All those sexual ones which really only apply to women. My hatred on these rests on the fact that the use of these words rely on the basic idea that women having sex is bad. It's an attempt to control other women's sexuality. Well you know what? Fuck you. My body, my sex. It's got nothing to do with anyone else. Having sex is not bad. It's not wrong, it's not evil. Not having sex is not virtuous. Not having sex does not make you a better person, or a good girl.

And it is significant that there are no equivalent insults for men. If we want to criticise a man for having sex we call them slut, slag, whore. These become insulting not so much because of the sexual aspect of the word, but because by applying them to men we are feminising men. It's like calling a man a big girl. It implies that being female, being a woman is a bad thing, it is inherently a worse state of being than to be a male. Riiiiighht.
My (male) friend agreed with all this. And then said that he believes that we've achieved equality. This makes me so tired.

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Then today on my browsings around the internet I visited The F Word's site. From here I was linked to an Abbey OReilly post on The Guardian's blog site. She talks about being harassed in the street. About being stalked at a London train station. About being groped on the tube. About requests for a blow job from complete strangers. This is violent and threatening behaviour. It happens to all women. It is scary. It is why Reclaim the Night exists. It shouldn't fucking happen. We shouldn't have to put up with this shit. Seems simple right? Apparently not. If you read the comments left on Abbey's post it seems many people cannot tell the difference between chatting someone up and abusing them. This makes me want to weep.

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This behaviour makes me sick.

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To people who say Feminism isn't needed and we've attained equality, may I direct to Ain't it Cool News. In this article, Capone chats up Loretta Devine. She's not interviewed, she's chatted up. This is not about her work, it's about her sexual status, her availability for a shag. It's like putting a big neon sign saying it's ok, she's still a sexual object, we don't have to take her work seriously, we're thinking about her in terms of sex. This doesn't happen to men. Maybe it's because it's mostly straight men interviewing other straight men. But that highlights another problem doesn't it, where are the lady interviewers?

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One good thing can come out of the Wonder Woman Playboy shoot. Provided they haven't photoshopped and airbrushed her pose, comic artists could use this as an example of how spines work.

Eh

Oy this again
I don't want to be protected. I want to be able to protect myself (quite possibly with high kicking kung fu moves. This is why I like Black Canary so much).
Christian vlaues did not stop sexual exploitation from flooding the town square. That's why there's always been prostitution. And rape. Sure, it may have kept it out of sight and condemned the women more than the men, but..oh right..that's not good is it?
The chilvalric code kept politeness but maybe not respect? I'd rather respect.
I don't want a society where the solution to gender inequality is that women have to rely on men to protect them. I want a society where I am not at risk of being raped, or mugged, or threatened or leered at. I want a society where the words slut, whore, slag, etc are not insults. Because it shouldn't matter what a women does in her privtae life. having sex does not denigrate her status as a human being. And using these words as insults does denigrate women.

Right now I'd settle for comics and literature that show a wide variety of possible nasty things that can hurt women at night. And also shows these women turning to face their intended attackers and having some power.
Let me explain. Currently, when women in comics are walking alone at night, one or more men will turn up, leer at her, and make sexual violence threats to her. You know, they never wanna just mug her or beat her up. there's always the sexual undertone. And the women always scream and run. They never turn round to face their attacker and stand up for themselves to fight, or laugh in their face, or anything. Their role is to run away. Fine, in the real life I guess this happens a lot. But I am sick of reading of women as victim. Some women fight back you know.
Some women aren't victims. I read a story in a women's magazine a couple of years ago where this women 'talked her way out of rape'. She got in a dodgy cab, the faux taxi driver drove off in the wrong direction, she realised what was happening and screamed and yelled and took control. She didn't get raped. (I can't remember how she got out of the cab - I'm 99% certain she wasn't left in the middle of nowhere though.)
So you know, it does happen. we can take control.

So stop showing me fiction where women can't help themselves. That doesn't gel with my experience as a woman. And I don't get threatened with rape every time I go outside at night.

Statues, Kryptonians and lesbians

I was following the MJ statue furore closely but after so many posts I got a little disheartened. It's really good to see so many people talking about it, it's good to see different points of view. However some responses have really bothered me.
The one I'm mostly disturbed by is people saying that MJ looks like a skank, or a whore. Where do people get off judging others for how they dress? There's a lot of hatred behind calling someone a whore. And of course there's the value judgement of being a prostitute is *bad*, it's the worst thing a woman could be. If a woman's a whore, she's not worth anything - she's the lowest of the low. Or am I reading too much into it? It seems to me that people slagging women off based on their style of dress is deeply wrong.
How other's dress has got nothing to do with anyone, except the person themselves. It doesn't tell you about their morality. It seems to me to be running along similar lines of she wore a short skirt she was asking to be raped.
If anyone is reading this, I really would like your thoughts.
Posts that I have enjoyed about MJ are this Nerd Selection one and this livejournal one which talks about other Adam Hughes statues. The Livejournal one makes a lot of good points, and I came away from that post confused about the merits of the statue again. Plus, I love those other statues. Especially the Wonder Woman and Power Girl one. And the Hawkgirl one. And the Zatanna one. Oh. That's all of them you say? Well ok they all rock. Someone buy me them. Please.

In other comic readings, I finally got Runaways 2 and 3, not as ass kickingly awesome as numbers 1 and 6, (but maybe that's due to the hangover), but pretty damn good all the same. The art is lovely, the way the paper is printed is lovely. The characters are written and presented as humans first, men and women second. They have different body types and their personality is shown in each face. It's what the feminist blogosphere has been crying out for!
I for one, love Gert, partly cos she's fat. So rare to see a fat chick in comics. She has attitude.
And I'm so pleased by the lesbian relationship! That is one of the reasons I wanted to pick the books up, it's a lesbian relationship that is presented as normal, and not as 'other'.
(and for a wordy book equivalent of this check out Tamora Pierce's 'Magic in the Weaving'

Supergirl number 16 and 17. *SPOILERS to end of post*



Now I really liked the origin story number 16. A different spin on Jor-el, Zor-el revealed not be an insane nutter, a reason given for Kara's instructions to kill Superman. It explained the crystals a bit, thought I'd still like to know exactly how they are implanted in her and how that works. Good stuff I thought.
And then in number 17 they ruin it by hinting that it's not Zor-el who is speaking to Kara, it's two other mystery people. Now that sucks. And then the other Supergirl turns up.
I didn't read 52 but I do know the conclusion reintroduced the multiverse. And as I have also read theories saying that this Kara's Krypton is different to Superman's Krypton, (something to do with crystals and hair apparently, I should really pick up Superman), I assume that the Kara we have known so far is from a different universe. I hate guessing plotlines. Especially when I'm right. Hopefully I'll be wrong.