Welcome to the Shadow Net

Internet terms are a case study in vocabulary lag, as gross indecencies like "Para utilizar el chat, se necesita loadar la página Web www.pidginespañol.com con browser Java-ready" attest. It's particularly annoying to see this kind of mealy-mouthed jabber online, since a few minutes of Web search will usually supply authentic translations for most of these hideous anglicisms.

To find target-language translations for such terms, search for the English equivalent and a target language key word. I usually use one or more conjunctions (words like "and," "or," "but") as the target language detector, as they occur in most text. So many Web pages are bilingual, offering both English and target-language text, that more often than not, this kind of query nets at least one page that includes the term in both languages. Provided that its origins inspire confidence, all that's left is to scan the target-language side of the page for the magic word.

If you don't find an answerable page using the English equivalent as your index, try another index language. For example, a French indexer may well nail a page, particularly a Belgian one, that contains both French and that Dutch word you're looking for.

Whither the Usenet?

Finally, newsgroups are a great place to post queries about vocabulary translations and other requests for culture-specific information. Or they were; last year, all messages before May 1999 were "temporarily" removed and never seen again. Now Google has purchased DéjàNews, and cut Usenet service back to practically nothing. Google swears they'll soon launch a vastly improved service, including access to messages back to 1995. We can only hope.

Give it a shot!

Make the Shadow Net a part of your Internet routine. You'll be amazed at the stuff you find, treasures you never would have discovered if you hadn't, well, looked for them.

Oh, and by the way: the French word for hominy (the real translation, not the twaddle that most dictionaries serve up) is sagamité. Thanks, Internet.

This article available from Suite 101 World Languages: www.suite101.com/welcome.cfm/world_languages

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