20 Years of SweMail

“Haven’t you ever heard of Google?”

By Ingemar Olson

Yes, incredible as it may seem, as of this issue (March 2021) we celebrate the start of the 21st year of SweMail (see the blurb on page 5). The very first SweMail was developed for the March 2001 issue and we’re still here.

It all got started with the Dec 2000 issue, which contained a charming “Last Word” fantasy article about a towel, which I wanted to share with my wife (who claims that she knows only one single word of Swedish). But of course the story was in Swedish, so I had to translate it for her. Having done that, I took a look at exactly how much Swedish there was in the magazine, and I thought that with a bit of help it would be quite do-able to translate all the Swedish in the entire issue. With 10 people we’d only need to do about one column of text each. I could then put the pieces together and email it all out to anyone who wanted it. Naturally, this would have to involve some active participation by Swedish Press itself, for publicizing the availability and to act as a central point for folks to send in their email addresses. I sent the translated story to Anders Neumüller and mentioned my idea. He liked it and suggested I write a Letter to the Editor asking for volunteer translators and for people to send him their email addresses. He also came up with the catchy name.

Well, we didn’t quite get to my target of 10 translators, but it was enough. Over the years we have had 16 different volunteers participate. Amazingly, of the eight participants that we currently have, three of us have been along for the whole ride, and four for most of it. I can’t remember exactly how many readers we had for that first issue, but I’m thinking about 50. Currently I email translations to 134 folks, send notifications about the website to a further 46, and I have no idea how many folks are just looking at the website without me needing to do anything. Lots, I hope!

At the beginning, we had to wait for everyone in our team to get their own issue of Swedish Press in the mail before they could even get started on translating anything. I always got mine pretty quickly (being in the same city) but others were not always so fortunate. So there were, shall we say, some delays in the process. Later on I acquired a scanner, so I could scan the relevant pages and email the images to my fellow translators. This sped up the process considerably, not needing to rely on snail mail. These days it is even simpler, since the publisher (Joan, actually) extracts the Swedish pages at about the same time that they are sent to the printer, and I can make these available to our group pretty quickly. Of course, we can’t all drop everything just because a new set of translating tasks arrive in our inbox, so as a rule, I like to give everyone at least a week to do their stuff. Some translators regularly get their contributions done almost immediately and others take the full week. Embarrassingly, the last contributor is often ... me, but no one knows (until now, oops) so it’s ok! After a bit of further editing, like adding a few additional background notes and web links and bringing some stories up to date, the whole thing is ready

Ingemar Olson Bodil Söderberg Jan Sundin Inger Beecher

to be emailed out and posted to the website. And then all is quiet for a few weeks, until the next issue is ready.

But it hasn’t all been smooth sailing. There have been a few hiccups along the way, although nothing severe enough to interrupt the flow of translations. My personal hiccups include a heart attack, a bypass operation, a hip replacement, two major house moves, two trips to Sweden and a number of road trips more ‘locally’. And there has been a lot of spam. Apparently back in 2010 someone on my recipient list got hacked, and their email contact list was ‘harvested’, including the address I use to mail out the translations. So far I have received about 22,000 spam emails (yes, I counted them!) with a daily high of 226. This volume has quieted down to almost nothing by now, but there are still occasional bursts of activity.

In the early days many folks had email clients/readers that did not handle long lines well, so I made sure to split every paragraph into lines of about 60 characters. That was a ... hm ... nuisance, and I’m glad people are using more modern email clients these days. I was also not thrilled when my ISP decided to stop hosting web pages, and I had to find another host that was equally affordable (ie: free). The one I chose as seemingly most reliable turned out to also be a favourite of many others – some with content that was not family friendly. So when I included my link in the emails, many of those translations got intercepted before they reached anyone, because they mentioned a red-flagged web host. So these days that emailed link is not clickable.

Of course, I also asked my fellow translators for some of their recollections: • I’ve been on board for such a short time, I am hardly in a position to reminisce ... but I am so enjoying being part of this group! • I have several fond memories as a SweMail translator from over the years. First, when early on I couldn’t come up with a translation, Ingemar would simply ask, “Haven’t you ever heard of Google?” Second, I look forward every month when my translations “hit the press” to see what changes he has made, and I am always saying, “Why didn’t I think of that!” It is always great fun and I have learned a lot. • Being one of the original members in the translation group, I have had the pleasure of doing this for a long time. I enjoy keeping in touch with what happens in my native country and appreciate the opportunity to do this. • I have recently joined this group of translators. I have always enjoyed translating things. Over the years I have often been asked to translate family papers, sometimes printed documents, but mostly old letters. The letters can be challenging, being written in longhand and difficult to decipher. Often the author has not used any punctuation, and there can be some “creative” spelling! They use words in “Swenglish” and “Finglish” that are funny. In contrast, the Swedish Press articles are easy to read, use proper grammar and spelling and keep my brain working! I hope to keep doing this for a while!

And what does the future hold? Alas, no one knows for sure, but we have no plans to stop translating, so if you like the translations you can look forward to more of the same.

Oh yeah, my wife’s ‘single word’ in Swedish? Hiss. Apparently quite useful if you’re lost in the hotel lobby and want to get back to your room. http://biolson.atspace.cc/swemail/

Mats Gerschman Eva Grenier

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Ingemar is currently enjoying retirement in sunny Parksville, on Vancouver Island, British Columbia. He spends most of the day (especially these wintery ones) ensconced in front of his computer, working on various personal projects, and also taking occasional bike rides around town in the summer.

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