It seems Birmingham isn’t the only city having bother with place name apostrophes, as shown by the Londonist website’s post on Should King’s Cross Have An Apostrophe?. Unlike Birmingham City Council, however, the various London authorities haven’t reached a unanimous decision. The simple truth is that there is no ‘official’ stance on the name. Or, …
Category archives: Language
What’s in a name: spelling “Gaddafi”
The “As a Linguist” blog has a new post, Wait, who just died?, on the problematic pronunciation and spelling of Colonel Gaddafi’s name. I’ve been “translating” his name (from the Italian version, Gheddafi) just about every day since the Libyan uprising began (I work with another translator on the English version of the Italian Foreign Ministry’s website). So …
Floundering in fonts
How do graphic designers do it? I’m working on a new logo, for personal rather than business use. Or rather, Zoë Shuttleworth of Rude Goose is working on it, and I’m no doubt driving her round the bend with my contradictory input. This probably sounds like a vanity project but there’s a motivational reason behind …
Ge tem, mona mour…(?) Punctuation (and spelling) botheration, Italian style
It seems that Italy too has got problems with spelling and punctuation, though in this case at graffiti rather than local authority level. The text in black above should read “L’orgoglio non serve”. Roughly translated, “Pride doesn’t serve any purpose”, to which an Italian Lynne Truss has responded “But apostrophes do”. This picture is from a …
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Punctuation botheration (as resolved by Victor Borge)
UK local authorities seem to have a fraught relationship with punctuation and spelling. Birmingham City Council decided in January 2009 to remove the possessive apostrophe from its place names — presumably the issue was too contentious to resolve otherwise. St Paul’s Square, King’s Norton and Druid’s Heath have thus become St. Pauls Square, Kings Norton and …
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Smart quote-marks for smart translating
I wrote on 21 July about quote-marks — how to decide whether you should be using curly (smart) or straight quotes and, once you’ve decided, how to type them using keyboard shortcuts where necessary. Translators, however, need to decide not just which quote marks to use but whether or not to “translate” them. For example, …
Portuguese pick-ups
We’re just back from holiday in Portugal, with a mid-year resolution to sign up for Portuguese lessons at Glasgow University’s Department of Adult and Continuing Education, which thankfully seems to have survived the threatened budget cuts. As my daughter put it, we felt like such tourists, not being able to speak the language. However, not speaking …
Smart quote-marks for smart writing
Keyboard shortcuts are a great timesaver when you’re spending hours typing away on your computer. I’ve just learned a couple of new ones, for inserting smart (curly) quotes in text where autoformat functions, such as Word’s, don’t work, and for doing the opposite: inserting straight quotes when you’re working in AutoFormat mode. I discovered these tips …
Top 100 Language Lovers and Top 25 Language Professionals Blogs, 2011: we’re well chuffed!
“Words to good effect” is one of the winning blogs (we came 3rd!!!) in the Top 25 Language Professionals Blogs 2011 competition organised by LexioPhiles and Bab.La. We came 30th overall in the Top 100 Language Lovers category. We’re totally chuffed! A big Thank You to everyone who voted for us! By Marian Dougan
The king’s speech — and how to translate it
As I mentioned in my last post, I’ve had a speech-flavoured working week. Translating a speech is a good opportunity for translators to provide added value for their clients. Not only should our translated text read fluently and naturally, it should also be easy for non-native-speaking clients to read aloud (and for their audience to …
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