Watch
your language!
From visiting trade delegations to overseas marketing activities and, of course, the ships that call here, Port Authority staff members get exposed to scores of dialects and accents.
This summer alone we've had trade officials here from Algeria, England, China, Finland, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Libya, Malta, Netherlands, Nigeria, Pakistan, Phillippines, Portugal, Russia, South Africa, Spain, Sudan, Sweden, Ukraine, and Yemen.
Trade Development Director Ron Johnson made marketing calls in Greece, Cyprus and Turkey; Business Development Director Andy McDonough had an International Rotary event in Argentina; and this fall there's a Great Lakes trade mission to England and the Netherlands.
For good measure, the Port of Duluth-Superior again this year will serve ships from about 30 countries and, these days, most oceangoing ships have multinational crews.
(Canada should be mentioned here, too, but in our binational navigational system we have constant contact and, besides, it's tough to tell the difference between our accents — unless you're a Quebecer.)
Meanwhile, the City of Duluth — and, in particular, the Duluth Technology Center — recently received national attention when the New York Times ran a wonderfully positive story about the new Tech Center and how its development was a serendipitous spinoff of Duluth's sister city relationship with Vaxjo, Sweden (see story in our spring edition).
"On the street," the story said, "you hear French, Swedish, Russian, Japanese and at least half a dozen other foreign tongues." It also said local leaders hope to "make Duluth a major port city for information technology as it has long been for timber, grain and iron ore."
The Times may be excused for including timber and ignoring coal. I'm not about to quibble about a detail in such a fine portrayal of our town.
And most local folks already know that languages spoken by foreign sailors on our streets for the past 42 years (or since the 1959 St. Lawrence Seaway opening) are rarely confused with those of exotic places like Minneapolis or Fargo.
This is not to suggest we don't have our own peculiar accents, eh?
Anyone over 40 who grew up on the Iron Range or Lake Superior's South Shore or in Morgan Park, Gary-New Duluth or other ethnic pockets of our community also has first-hand familiarity with non-English dialects.
Native or newcomer, one thing we eventually acquire around here is a fairly good ear. It takes a certain mental adroitness to work through accents. Some of us take to it faster than others.
Thirty-plus years ago, I took a ship to Montreal and, on arrival, followed up on a suggestion by Duluth vessel agent Sven Hubner (later to become the "Hubner" of Guthrie-Hubner, Inc.) that I call on a certain person at a large shipping company. I had always heard Sven refer to this fellow as "Doc."
Before I phoned Doc's office to make an appointment, I realized I didn't know his given name. Not wanting to overstep the bounds of propriety in a first meeting, I called Sven.
"What is Doc's real name?"
"Well," said Sven, born and raised in Copenhagen, "I think it should be pretty obvious. It's Docklas."
"How do you spell that?"
"Good grief, Helberg," he said. "D.o.u.g.l.a.s."
Oh. Of course. I should've known better. Accents have always been part of my life.
In the mid-1950s, when my wife and I were teen-agers in little Esko, just west of here, Karen applied for a job at the Co-Op Store and was told she needed to know at least basic Finnish. It was required because many customers either didn't know or were uncomfortable using English. Karen got the job.
Nonetheless, we still wrestle with language, with accents.
One of my wife's cousins in Finland was married to a fellow named Raimo. Good strong name, one you launch with a slightly rolled "r".
Somehow, though, we heard the name as "Ruma." So for years, we addressed Christmas cards and letters to "Mr. and Mrs. Ruma Lehvisto."
One day, Karen's mother happened to see an envelope not yet mailed and said, "Um, this must be a typo. You know, of course, that `ruma' means `ugly'."
