A RAT IS IN THE OPERATING ROOM

BY CARLOS MIJARES POYER

A RAT IS IN THE OPERATING ROOM

Sunday afternoon, the phone rings.  People are waiting for the last minute to have a translation performed.  A call appears, it is a surgeon from the public hospital, he does not make much money the government stipulates.  He calls for a translation in the field of knowledge of surgery, a specific procedure that must be performed with scientific calculation in the operating room by his soft hands.

The operation is a pediatric operation for a one year old little girl whose intestine has grown into itself in the cavity, at the end of the large intestine, this is the question and the surgeon must prepare, it is a standard procedure, but new instruments have arrived from abroad and the surgeon is South American.  The instruments come with specifications in English, and the dimensions of the baby girl are small, we know that, we all love children and the labour of love a pediatrician undertakes, saving lives and perfecting nature in the eyes of God.

This translation gave birth to itself when the internet was beginning in the nineties, it was printed in courier matrix printer font, we were all used to then.  The CAT tools didn´t exist, some rudimentary ones.

Beginning the surgical translation, there was much medical terminology, used to from performing other medical translations, and then a incognito appeared.  In the text, in order to operate the baby girl a particular instrument was to be used in South America, that was new and innovative, it required a small mathematical interpretation we all know since we are children, as a “ratio”.  This was the ghost of the translation.

An analogy theoretically is a simile or metaphor or comparison, as we have seen in grammar exams of multiple-choice, and the like, that compares a concept or noun of some dimension or characteristic with a second or third of other natures.  Like dog:puppy, the translation to spanish would be: perro:cachorro.  An analogy in many ways is verbal or linguistic ratio, like 5 to 1 or 5:1.  It is very used for sizes of objects and concepts if you think abstractly and that´s your interest.

The translation required to translate the word ratio to spanish.  Sometimes when you translate there are many onomatopaeic words that sound and mean in the same way they are pronounced like tick, tock, just like the hands of a clock... operations sometimes last for hours, and we stare at the clock on the wall in desperation.

Ratio in spanish can be translated as “rata” or “pro-rata”.  Rata, (can you roll your r´s) not figuratively, but with extreme concrete thinking of underdeveloped minds means rat, the common household rat. "Erre con erre cigarro, erre con erre barríl, rápido corren los carros por la carretera del ferrocarríl." PRACTICE THIS PHRASE IN SPANISH FOR ROLLING R´S.

For this surgeon when reading the translation he thought or didn´t understand the fable of the rat, and operation he had to perform, and a translator´s note was added.  There was indeed a rat in the operating room.