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Hillary Clinton’s Wrong Button Blues
Overall, the meeting was said to represent vast improvements in tone over the iciness of Clinton’s predecessor. But by the end of the day, nothing positive could overshadow Clinton’s erroneous gift. Media sources present afterward picked up on the linguistic blunder and focused many questions for Clinton on the button. Attempting to successfully spin the incident, Clinton’s reply was, “In a way the word that was on the button turns out also to be true.” Instead of ‘overcharge,’ Clinton suggested that ‘peregruzka’ could also be translated as ‘overload.’ As in, “...we are resetting so the minister and I have an overload of work.” It was a nice try. Clearly, language experts were few and far between that day.
Even Lavrov refused to let the matter rest. The Russian brought the red button up twice more, eventually admitting that he and Clinton had pressed the button together in an act eerily evocative of launching a nuclear strike. Going further, he added, “It is a very, very large red button. I do hope that Russia and the United States and other countries would never ever push any other buttons associated with initiation of destructive hostilities.” While Lavrov’s final comments lacked the panache of a native English speaker, at least his intensions were clear. Hopefully, Clinton and the other Americans involved that day learned the value of accurate translation in a merging global environment. Otherwise, we’ll all be lost in translation. Hilary Clinton could have saved herself the embarrassment if she used Translators Inc. For your foreign language needs, use Translators Inc. (www.translators.com) when you can’t afford to be misunderstood. | Back
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