Lost in Translation

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When words (and worlds) collide

 

This week I facilitated a webinar on Motivational Interviewing for members of the Ontario Association of Social Workers. I like how webinars offer an opportunity for professional development in a distributed learning format from the comfort of home or office; and clinical social workers tuned in for our evening session from various regions, cities and towns. We had a fun and at times informal conversation in the chat bar, with some interesting discussion focused on my unintentional use of idiomatic expressions and vernacular language.

 

Idioms are culture-bound and can be confusing to diverse groups who may puzzle at their intended meaning. For example, when I talk about needing to keep my head above water in working with complex clinical scenarios. And one of my personal favorites is a skill or tool that’s as easy as pie. No doubt there was a time when pie-making was super-easy, but not anymore (at least for me anyway).

 

Expressions aren’t just culture-bound, they can also be generational in their meaning. In this week’s webinar I talked about the Coles Notes version of Motivational Interviewing in reference to a one-page “Motivational Interviewing Tip Sheet”. There was some light-hearted (another idiom!) text-chat in the sidebar about the generational divide among people who understand what Coles Notes actually refers to.

 

Last night I had a conversation with the teenager in my life about putting pen to paper. Her reply? “I don’t know what that means”.

 

Maybe I need to spend some time with urbandictionary.com.

 

Related:

Six Tips for Facilitating Webinars