A blog about translation, writing and language in all its glorious aspects
It’s been quite a month for historic speeches in the UK and Ireland, with the speeches by Queen Elizabeth, President McAleese and President Obama during the Queen’s State Visit to Ireland and President Obama’s to Ireland and the UK. And it’s been the year of The King’s Speech (the film, that is), featuring Lionel Logue …
Continue reading “The king’s speech (not to mention the queen and the presidents’)”
Voting is now open for the Top 100 Language Blogs 2011 competition organised by LexioPhiles, for which we’ve been nominated in the “Language Professionals” category. Voting takes place from 17 to 29 May 2011. If you’d like to vote for Words to good effect, you can do so here. Thank you! By Marian Dougan
The British Foreign Minister, William Hague, has just made a statement to Parliament on Britain’s future diplomatic network (11 May 2011). It describes some of the spending cuts, rationalisation and refocusing of the UK’s diplomatic network that will be taking place throughout the current Parliament. Mr Hague adds that: This development of our network should be seen alongside …
Continue reading “The linguistic expertise of British diplomacy”
Richard Alcock, the Guardian newspaper’s business production editor, has written a post in the Mind Your Language blog offering David Cameron advice on the use of catchphrases. The post is inspired by the Prime Minister’s recent use of “Calm down dear” when addressing Angela Eagle, a female Labour Party MP — and Shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, no less. Her …
The Institute of Translation and Interpreting’s 25th Anniversary Conference took place in Birmingham on 7-8 May. It was a fantastic event that gave us all lots to think about and plenty of great ideas to put into practice. One of the workshops, No translator is an island, examined the sort of human interactions translators have to …
Continue reading “Take our poll: should new clients test your skills or hire you on trust?”
Yikes! I was browsing through the Online Etymology Dictionary for -le frequentatives the other day, as you do, and eventually arrived at the etyolomogical definition of feisty (I was looking for “fizzle”, but one’s as bad as the other, frankly). feisty 1896, “aggressive, exuberant, touchy,” Amer.Eng., with -y (2) + feist “small dog,” earlier fice, …
This morning’s “Call Kaye” phone-in programme on BBC Radio Scotland featured a discussion of whether Friday’s Royal Wedding had made Scottish listeners feel more proud to be British. Or not. Many of the callers enjoyed and felt their Britishness reinforced by the event. Some objected to the inclusion in the service of the hymn “Jerusalem” and …
Continue reading “An English bee in my Scottish-British-European bonnet”
For Christmas 2010, my son bought me Michael Quinion’s book Why is Q Always Followed by U?. It’s not the sort of book you’d read in one sitting, but it’s ideal for dipping into on short train or bus journeys or in dentists’ waiting rooms when the other patients have nabbed the only 2 interesting …
Continue reading “Faffing around: frequently added frequentatives”
As you’ll know if you’ve visited this blog in the last month or so, the School of Modern Languages and Cultures at Glasgow University is threatened by drastic funding cuts. There’s been a temporary reprieve, in that the decision has been postponed until after the Scottish elections. Michael Russel, the Scottish Education Minister, called for a moratorium on …
Continue reading “Saving Modern Languages at the University of Glasgow”
We’re delighted to correct our previous post on Itchy Coo press: happily, they are not closing down. Here’s their comment in full, to put the record straight: The story [published in Scotland on Sunday] is not accurate. Itchy Coo is NOT closing, and the books will continue to be available as long as folk continue …
Continue reading “Correction to our post on Itchy Coo press”