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 …
Category archives: Web-writing
Olympic Linguistic Games (2): a competition
Here’s a wee Olympic Games language competition for readers. No prizes, just the satisfaction of figuring out the acronym/initialism puzzle. English-Polish translator Marta Stelmaszak has attended a training workshop on Language Services of the Olympics. Some of the acronyms/initialisms she found there are listed below. Can you guess what they mean? DVPM IOC/IPC NOC/NPC OCOG …
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Olympic linguistic games
The organisers of the 2012 Olympic Games are making a big effort to ensure that the whole of the United Kingdom feels included in the event. There was a great fuss on the BBC news yesterday (18 May) about the arrival and planned relay — covering the length and breadth of the UK, with a …
Web-writing for translators: keywords. Should we be going there?
One of the participants at the Web-Writing Webinar on 11 April asked me how translators should deal with keywords when working on website translations. The question threw me for a minute, but I realised afterwards (as you do) that the answer should have been: “With great caution”. Selecting keywords is an important part of the …
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Web-Writing Webinar (2): accessibility and usability. They really do matter.
One of the slides I used for the Web-Writing Webinar on 11 April asked the question: Users with accessibility or usability issues. Who are they? The answer was: All of us. We all at one time or another (indeed eventually) become less able: you fall and sprain your wrist, get repetitive strain injury, you get …
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WWW? Web-Writing Webinar!
I’m delighted and honoured that eCPD Webinars has invited me to present a web-writing webinar on 11.30 am (UK time) on Wednesday 11 April 2012. While eCPD focuses on continual professional development for translators, Wednesday’s webinar will include tips and insights for anyone interested in writing good web copy. It will also give you an overview …
Passionate about perspective
Have you got any website words that set your teeth on edge? “Passionate” is one of mine, as in “we’re passionate about quality” (or about our work, our clients etc). First, it’s over-used and doesn’t do anything to distinguish company A from company B. If everybody’s passionate about their work and their clients, where’s the …
A translation sin of omission
I wrote a couple of posts, back in August, about the Oxford comma (Oxford commas (1), The Oxford Comma dilemma: a solution? and Oxford commas (2): Live dangerously – take our poll!). This post too is about “list” sentences containing commas. It’s also about a way of spotting when an Italian-to-English translator is working on …
Planning a new website? Communicate! (with your translator too)
One of my clients told me recently that their company is re-doing its website. They’re working with web-designers and -developers, copy-writers, graphic designers and search-engine optimisation (SEO) specialists based in Spain, the US and various Italian cities. The client, a company based in north-east Italy, already works with designers and suppliers based in Spain, Denmark, …
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Shake out your web site’s welcome mat
The best way to make your web site welcoming to visitors isn’t a big “Welcome” mat on the home page. The trick is to put yourself in your visitors’ shoes and make your site easy and enjoyable to use. Simplicity, ease of navigation and consistency are the key words here. I recently visited the Herald Scotland …