Interpreter Might Help This Barrier

I cannot be fluent in three languages. If I try to cram more than two languages into my brain at one time, my head will explode. It has exploded twice today already.

I am not speaking of English, German or Spanish. Those are easy languages. I am speaking of Microsoft Word, Macintosh and Cyber.

Today, I realized I will have to keep all three of these computer languages straight in my head. None of them can even agree on what to call that big “enter” key. One of them persists in calling it “return.” Now, in English, my first language, enter and return are opposites. One means to go in and the other means to come back.

So when I hit that key, I have no idea whether I’m coming or going. No wonder my head keeps exploding.

Why aren’t all computer languages the same? Mankind has pondered this question since ancient times, the 1950s. Nobody knows the answer for certain, but the legend goes like this:

Long ago, a computer genius named Bob decided to design a computer that was more intelligent than any earthly intelligence. In fact, he wanted to design a computer that would actually approach the ultimate Intelligence: a computer that could tap directly into the mind of the Deity.

That’s right. He wanted to go online with God.

So, he built this computer, which came to be known as the Bob-L (a name dreamed up by the marketing department). He got this phenomenal new computer built, hooked up his modem, and dialed in to a new service he had created called Almighty OnLine.

Then the big moment came. Bob entered a chat room titled “Hangin’ Out With The Big Guy” and prepared to engage in witty banter with God himself.

At that very moment, a lightning storm sent a surge through Bob’s computer, frying both software and hardware. Bob had been flamed by God.

God was so annoyed at Bob’s arrogant attempt to log-on with Heaven that He decreed from that day forward that all computer languages would be confounded unto all the Earth. The computer languages were scattered in utmost confusion and filled with ridiculous jargon, such as “sendmail daemon.”

And that is the parable of “The PowerBook of Bob-L.”

Anyway, here’s my problem. I spent a long time learning a system called Cyber, which is a special newspaper system that I use to write dumb columns filled with biblical puns. This system has a few quirks of its own. For instance, the “delete” key isn’t actually a delete key. Another word is pasted over it. That word is, in perfect computer logic, “word.”

Then, I got a Macintosh computer at home, and I had to learn its system as well as the ClarisWorks software that came with it. No longer did I “get” a story; I had to “open” it. No longer did I “put” a story; I “saved” it or “closed” it.

Over the years, I figured most of this out. I became bilingual in Cyber and Macintosh, although not exactly fluent in either. I was bilingual only in the sense that you could call President John F. Kennedy bilingual when he made that famous “Ich bin ein Berliner” speech. He thought he was saying, “I am a citizen of Berlin,” but he was actually saying, “I am a pastry.”

Maybe this explains why I am always stymied when I try to link up to a remote computer. Instead of saying, “Send document,” my computer thinks I am saying, “I am a pastry.”

In the meanwhile, I tried to learn a bunch of other dialects, such as the Internet dialect, the Spokane Library catalog dialect, and, most important of all, the PGA Tour Golf for Macintosh dialect.

The killing blow came this week when someone came around and installed Windows on my computer at work. I am supposed to use it for e-mail and for writing letters. So I was writing a letter to somebody on it when I got all confused by this new syntax and ended up defining the whole thing. I didn’t know what to do. I hit the key that said “word.”

Which, as I mentioned above, is actually the delete key. You can guess the rest. I said some bad words, in three different languages.

, DataTimes