Tetrad: Phraselator

McLuhan Laws of Media Tetrad Phraselator
Giving orders in foreign language enhances	Cliche shouting match reverses
retrieves Captain Kirk's (Star Trek) personal communicator	obsolesces English to XXX Phrase Translation Books

Slate's Tomorrow's Soldier Today contains a brief mention of Phraselator.

This is just a quick brainstorm and reaction to Andrew Chrystall's post on "Medea Wars: cursory examination of US .mil's Phraselator." The fact that this device completely bypasses the western alphabet is significant. It becomes its own language.

The enhancement assumes that someone will listen. The reversal is interesting as the devices depends on "predetermined phrases" or cliches. There are certainly other retrievals. I would think it would make human translators much more human - translating more than just phrases (body language). And the intent is to obsolesce the pocket translation books, but only half of them, so far, because it is a one-way device. XXX-English lives.

Certainly some unintended uses of this device will be seen in the field.

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Retrieval is to obsolescence as enhancement is to reversal
Captain Kirk's (Star Trek) personal communicator is to English to XXX Phrase Translation Books as Giving orders in foreign language is to Cliche shouting match

Retrieval is to enhancement as obsolescence is to reversal
Captain Kirk's (Star Trek) personal communicator is to Giving orders in foreign language as English to XXX Phrase Translation Books is to Cliche shouting match