Today was the second day, and the indepth workshop on how to move trace research and development forward in Canada, at Trace R&D 2009 (http://www.umanitoba.ca/afs/trace/home.html). It was an honor to be part of this rather intense, interesting and intellectually invigorating interchange of ideas. Particular thanks to John Graham of IBM for moderating the discussion for the eclectic and energetic group I was part of.

I won't go into the details of the traceability plan forward, as the organizers will be assimilating feedback before a plan of action is put in place. Two funny things happened during the session, however. The first stems from the fact that the conference, as is required in Canada, had English to French translators at work, translating the English presentations into French real-time for the francophiles wearing headsets. A small but important contingent of Quebecois were at a table near ours, and they were split between headset wearers and those bearing the English in raw form. My table happened to be right in front of the translators, who were behind not-quite-soundproof glass, actively converting English into its more mellifluous and more Romantic cousin.

The speaker was describing differences between North America and Europe, and mentioned that in Europe "moving forward is often derailed by fringe groups". The translator behind me, however, heard the word "fringe" as "French" and translated it as such. The headset-wearers quickly exchanged words with their colleagues not wearing headsets and began laughing together. The rest of the room didn't get their joke, but I was strategically positioned to join in their mirth. I guess there is a similar relationship between the Quebecois and French as there is between anglophonic North Americans and the British. Of course, the most interesting part is the translator. Why did she hear "fringe" as "French"? It couldn't be a Freudian slip--he was Austrian. Was it, even, a faux pas? If you ask me, it was a bon mot.

Translate this!

In addition, we noticed that the list of trite expressions for describing traceability from the raw product (food, animal) to the human consumable (food, drink) was short and popular. The list includes:

1. From gate to plate (and its variant "from farm gate to dinner plate")

2. From paddock to plate

3. From farm to fork

4. From dirt to dinner (not the most palatable trite expression)

5. From farm to fryer

Ugh. Nothing against the companies involved in the creation of these expressions, just that they were repeated so many times this week, that some sort of rebellion against the cliché was inevitable. I began wondering what other expressions were due to pop up as this current, er, crop, wore thin. Perhaps the following?

1. From bull to bowl

2. From steer to steak

3. From bull to belly

4. From cattle to cutlerly

5. From stable to table

6. From calving to carving

7. From branding to breakfast

8. From farmstock to facestuffing

9. From round-up to ground-up

10. From feedlot to foodfight

11. From farm to feeding frenzy

12. From cowtown to chowdown

and perhaps the most unsavory (and suitably number 13):

13. From sty to stomach

Do I expect any traceability providers to take these kindly offered clichés nouvelles as their own? Hardly. Je ne suis pas né hier. They would look silly, and I do not advise it. But it would break up the monotony, er, ennui...

Alors, à bientôt,

Steve