Working Languages

The BBC reports on two different attempts to sort out exactly what it was that provoked the red-card incident in Sunday’s World Cup Final.

BBC Radio Five Live asked for help from a deaf lip reader, Jessica Rees, who read the words phonetically to an Italian translator.

She deciphered the insult as being "you're the son of a terrorist whore" - a translation also carried by many national newspapers in Britain on Tuesday.

The BBC's Ten O'Clock News also called in experts to study the television footage of the incident and determined the following:

Materazzi's first word to Zidane was "no" before he then told him to "calm down".

He then accused him of being a "liar" and wished "an ugly death to you and your family" on the day the Frenchman's mother had been taken to hospital ill. This was followed by "Go f*** yourself".

Not sure about the methodology of having a deaf lip reader read the words “phonetically” to an "Italian translator”. The experts called in by the Ten O’Clock News appear to have been actual Italians.

I’m going with their version. But time may tell.

For those who take an interest in these matters only once every four years and don’t know what a typical day at the office involves for the lovely Marco Materazzi, here to give the flavour is one of several video compilations of his past exploits that have been posted on youtube.

The true fan will wonder how it can be that an assault on Materazzi constitutes even a foul, let alone a red-card offence.

And the true fan’s heart will also go out to the various sponsors, so cruelly undone by this unforeseen finale. One feels in particular for Budweiser, whose presence has been particularly insistent – let’s hope nobody gets the idea of associating beer consumption with incidents of violence or verbal abuse.