A blog about translation, writing and language in all its glorious aspects
Yesterday, 16 August, was International Apostrophe Day, and the cue for lots of apostrophe articles and Twitter posts. The following quick guide to when and how to use an apostrophe was taken from an article in The Guardian by David Marsh: If you can’t use an apostrophe, you don’t know your shit. How to use an apostrophe …
Continue reading “Apostrophes: everything you ever wanted to know, just about.”
The Joy of Books, by Type Books in Toronto, has got me itching to go book-shopping. And to jump on a plane to Toronto. By Marian Dougan
I love a good style guide. And I applaud anyone encouraging the use of clear English. But the GOV.UK style guide, produced by the United Kingdom’s Government Digital Service (GDS) for the GOV.UK website (the new portal bringing together all, or most, of the UK’s government websites), is really bugging me. More specifically, the part on plain …
One of the problems bilingual families face when choosing their babies’ names is finding something that’s easy to pronounce in both parents’ countries and languages and for both sets of relatives. We didn’t follow that rule when our first child, a boy, was born. We were living in Rome at the time but for me …
Wee Prince George is one week old today. I dug out my baby-name bible, “Choose Your Baby’s Name” by Rosalind Fergusson, first published in 1987 but which I bought in 1992 (no prizes for guessing why). Here’s what the royal names mean. George: from the Greek georgos, “tiller of the soil” or “farmer”. Also, of course, the …
Continue reading “The name game (1): Prince George Alexander Louis”
Two British institutions were in the media this week: the monarchy, with the birth of Prince George of Cambridge; and the Church of England, with the Archbishop of Canterbury’s support for credit unions and his challenge to payday loan companies. And two organisations were quick to exploit the marketing opportunities these events presented. One was …
Continue reading “A marketing lesson from George (no, not that one)”
The New York Times has published an interesting article on the new words and terms being used by Europe’s citizens as a result of the economic crisis. Some of the terms are lifted directly from English. Take “spreaddite acuta”, or acute spreaditis, used by the Italian media to describe Italy’s bond-yield problems. Or “downgradare”, referring to …
If you’re enjoying the lovely summer weather we’re having here in (most of) the UK, then maybe a translation conference is the last thing on your mind. But, come September, a few days of workshops and presentations in a beautiful setting with great company (translators do love a get-together!) will be just the ticket to …
Saints Alive, a new exhibition at the National Gallery in London, features “large-scale kinetic sculptures by Michael Landy that bring a contemporary twist to the lives of the saints”. The saints on display include St. Jerome, renowned for his translation of the Bible and the patron saint of translators. St. Jerome (borrowed from a painting by Cosimo Tura from 1470) is shown …
Continue reading “St. Jerome: a good role model for translators?”
A very quick post – a few links to blogs and videos, essentially – for those of you who didn’t make it to the Institute of Translation and Interpreting (ITI) conference in Gatwick in May and are curious to know what everyone got up to. Here are some snapshots: Reflections on the ITI Conference, by …
Continue reading “Didn’t make it to the ITI conference? Check out these snapshots”