“Relax. Concentrate. Dispel every other thought. Let the world around you fade.”—Italo Calvino, If on a winter’s night a traveler
September has a way of changing our attention.
The days may still be warm, but summer begins to loosen its hold. We return to our desks, our books, our routines—and, perhaps, to the pleasure of paying closer attention.
A word can ask for that same kind of attention. What looks simple on the page may carry history, humor, memory, or a meaning that only becomes visible when we pause long enough to notice it.
This month, I want to look at what can live inside a single word—and at the reader who brings that meaning to life.
From the Translation Desk
Iraj Pezeshkzad
Dā’i Jān Napoleon
You don’t need to read Persian to notice that something interesting is happening here. But if you do read Persian, you’ll probably notice the word ta’arof at the very end.
از کیف مادرم یک سکه یک قرانی دزدیدم و به بهانه خرید کتابچه زیر بازارچه رفتم. شمع خریدم و در سقاخانه زیر بازارچه روشن کردم: ــ خدایا! اولاً مرا ببخش که با پول دزدی شمع روشن میکنم. ثانیاً یا به من کمک کن که این اختلاف بین آقاجان و داییجان را حل کنم یا خودت حلش کن. ولی اطمینان داشتم که خدا بین این دو راه حل اگر بخواهد کمکی بکند دومی را انتخاب میکند. این را میدانستم فقط راه حل اول را برای تعارف گفته بودم.
I stole a one-qerani coin from my mother’s purse and, pretending I was going to buy a little book, went to the neighborhood market. I bought a candle and lit it in the market’s saqqakhaneh [a public water fountain that often serves as a small shrine]: —God! First, forgive me for lighting a candle with stolen money. Second, either help me solve this dispute between Dā’i Jān and Agha Jān or, solve it yourself. But I knew that if God wanted to help, he would choose the second solution. I only mentioned the first one out of ta’arof.
If you speak Farsi, or if you’ve spent any time around the wealth of entertaining material about ta’arof—including, perhaps, your favorite Persian comedian’s performance about it—you probably don’t need me to explain it. But for those hearing the word for the first time, or those who have heard it but never quite understood what it means, ta’arof is a form of Persian social etiquette in which politeness, generosity, refusal, and insistence can become a ritual of their own.
But what does it really mean?
Dishonesty.
There. I said it.
I know. That may sound harsh, and I can already imagine some disagreement. But whenever I think about ta’arof, that is the word that comes to mind.
Not dishonesty in the sense of deliberately deceiving someone. I mean something more complicated: the gap between what is said and what everyone understands is actually being said. Ta’arof often asks us to say something that isn’t meant literally, hear something without taking it entirely at face value, and participate in a little dance where everyone understands that the words themselves aren’t telling the whole story.
One word can hold a lot: not just a definition, but a relationship, an expectation, a joke, a history—or even a small dishonesty that everyone has agreed to understand. Because in the end, all of that has to land somewhere: with the reader.
From the archive
I’ve translated another passage from Dā’i Jān Napoleon—a comic take on love and the cultural meanings that surround it.
Read the passage →
Thank you for reading In Context.
Next issue: October 2026