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Santa Rosa de Arima

8/29/2021

Photo posted by Maximilian Forte

Arima, in Trinidad and Tobago, is considered the navel of Amerindian heritage, so much so that a community called the ‘Santa Rosa First Peoples Community’ was formed there. Arima is also the home of the Carib Queen, so there is a connection between Amerindians and Arima, but what is the connection between our Amerindian history, Santa Rosa de Lima and Arima? Well, in 1785, the Spanish government decided to repurpose the grounds of the old Capuchin Mission, founded in 1759 and dedicated to St. Rose of Lima, for the continued, more humane conversion of the indigenous. St. Rose was the first ‘new world’ inhabitant to be canonised a saint. She was called ‘Rosa’ because, as a baby, she was as beautiful as a rose and coincidentally went on to sell flowers to support her family, since she was denied entry to the nunnery in Peru.

Since the mission was already devoted to Santa Rosa de Lima, the foundation of the connection between the Amerindians and Santa Rosa was already present. But then it happened! It is said that the converted Amerindians once beheld the apparition of this saint in Arima near a spring which still exists; some say she even spoke to them. It is for this reason there was a push to rebuild her church and even name the area after her. Instead of Santa Rosa de Lima, the place was known as Santa Rosa de Arima. One source purports that she was born in Arima and carried away to Peru as a child. Every year Catholics and members of the Santa Rosa First Peoples Community hold a grand celebration for Santa Rosa. It begins with holy Mass, a procession with her statue through the streets of Arima, then a return to the church, followed by partaking in food, singing, dancing and visiting the different stalls.

The power of the Amerindian peoples may have dwindled from colonialism to now, but it certainly has not perished. They are still ever so present and are now claiming and reclaiming their identities, ancestral sites and names.

We hope you enjoyed this article which we have published in commemoration of the Santa Rosa feast day held on Sunday 22nd August, 2021.

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Our Values

8/24/2021

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As part of intercultural coaching, one of the topics I discuss with my assignees (expats) is identifying two or three of their core values.

What are values?

Values are what we teach our children.

They are ideals that are important to an individual, a culture, a company, a country.

RMC’s values include warm, engaging service to our clients. We focus on quality, reliability and accuracy in the delivery of our services.

Why are these important to us? Excellent customer service makes me feel happy. On the other hand, poor customer service leaves me feeling uncared for or just in a plain old bad mood. Who wants to be associated with an organisation and spend their hard earned money where they are not appreciated?

WARM, ENGAGING SERVICE. At RMC, we make a real effort to be pleasant not only in our telephone conversations but in our digital communication with all of our partners, stakeholders and clients. We listen to our clients, advise them in keeping with their needs and leave them on a high note.

RELIABILITY. A value I was taught growing up is the importance of keeping your word. If I promise someone I will get back to them or I will do something for them, even if I have to go out of my way, I will make sure it is done. If I am unable to keep my word, I will ask for help or I will let the person know when I can deliver. I do not like to be left hanging, so why would I leave others in the lurch?!

QUALITY AND ACCURACY. We have a number of quality assurance steps in the delivery of our services. For example, after a document is translated, it is reviewed and proofread before being delivered to our clients. No one is perfect. We are all prone to errors, however, we take certain measures to reduce the incidence of error before delivery to our clients.

What values do you uphold?

Let us know in the comments.

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Four grammatical tips to note when posting content

8/13/2021

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There are a few common phrases that are regularly used incorrectly or which appear clumsy. I am going to explain why they are incorrect and what to use instead. I have chosen a couple examples to illustrate my points:

'With regards to'
'Services providers'
'Trainings'
‘Part-time’ employee, but an employee who works part time.

1. Many times in speech and writing we hear and see with regards to. This is incorrect. We can say ‘as regards’, or ‘with regard to’, ‘concerning’, ‘in connection with’ or any other expression, but NOT 'with regards to'. It is just one of those expressions that is often used incorrectly.

2. I recently read an article from a newsletter to which I subscribe. The author used the expression services providers. Stop the press — chalk screeching on a blackboard — the word ‘service’ here is being used as an adjective, not a noun, so the correct expression is ‘service providers’. Why is this? The word ‘providers’ is the noun being described. What type of provider? A provider of services, or a ‘service provider’. The thing is, in this very article both ‘service providers’ and ‘services providers’ appeared, so it was not even used consistently throughout. Even though reference is being made to multiple services, it is not always necessary to pluralise the noun when the word is being used as an adjective.
Unfortunately this is not always the rule, so plural nouns can sometimes act as adjectives, e.g. sports medicine. English is not the easiest language! Sometimes we just need to do a quick search to see how many hits we get, do some checks of usage in context and use the expression that appears more frequently.

More and more I have been noticing the appearance of adjectives and verbs that are pluralised — this just seems so clumsy and often it is just wrong. In English, it is incorrect to pluralise adjectives. If we are talking about Spanish or French, for example, then that’s another story.
To determine whether a descriptive word should be pluralised, stop and ask yourself, ‘Is this word acting as a verb, an adjective or a noun?’ Then check it twice before hitting publish.
Here is an example of a phrase that has pluralised the word ‘services’ again. One possible explanation for this is it may have been translated by a non-native speaker of English who may have transferred the Spanish pluralisation of adjectives:

‘The Latin American Association of Services Exporters (ALES) convention’. The better expression would be ‘service exporters’.
‘Services sector’ — rather, use ‘service sector’. It is perfectly fine to use the latter as it is understood that the sector encompasses many services. ‘Service’ here is describing the sector and is an adjective.
‘Services exporters’ — rather, use ‘service exporters’.
‘Exporter regions’ is correct, where ‘exporter’ acts as an adjective describing the region.

3. How many trainings did you attend this year? Many of us have heard this word used incorrectly. ‘Training’ is the gerund or present participle of the verb ‘to train’. The gerund is the form of the verb ending in -ing. If you attended one, it would most like be a training session, workshop, meeting, programme and so on. It is incorrect to pluralise the gerund by adding an ‘s’ to the verb. You can however pluralise the noun that follows it, e.g. ‘training sessions’.

4. Compound adjectives. We have two ‘part-time’ employees, but they are employees who work part time (notice there is no hyphen in the latter case). The two words before employee are hyphenated because they are compound modifiers or adjectives. There are different types of compound modifiers, but here we will just discuss those that require a hyphen. Another example is ‘in-house proofreader’. Compound adjectives are usually hyphenated. There are some examples that are not, however. For example, if there is an adverb – ending in -ly e.g. for happily married couple, we would not hyphenate ‘happily’ and ‘married’. Those are just the rules. Hey! I did not make them!

I hope you enjoyed this article. Let me know your thoughts in the comments about what other examples of frequently misused words you have observed.

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Santa Rosa de Arima

Our Values

Four grammatical tips to note when posting content

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