Ideas worth translating

TED: Ideas worth spreading is a web site featuring “Riveting talks by remarkable people, free to the world”. To give you a flavour of the quality of the talks, you can rank them on the home page as: jaw-dropping, persuasive, courageous, ingenious, fascinating, inspiring, beautiful, funny or informative. The “Wow!” factor indeed. TED (which stands …

Worth two thousand words…

If the world were a village of 100 people, 9 would be English-speakers and 14 would be unable to read this post, no matter what their language. Toby Ng Kwong To’s “If the world were a village of 100 people” project uses information graphics to re-tell a statistical story in a creative, simple and accessible …

Oh, you saucy devil. Translators’ false friends

In my recent (9 May) post on “EU funding to delightful effect”, I used a word that – viewed from an Italian-to-English perspective – can trip up  unwary translators. The word is “evocative”. Pretty harmless, you might think. One of the Italian words for “evocative” is “suggestivo”. A word that Italian-to-English translators working on auto-pilot …

S.T.O.P. Gun and Knife Crime

Alexander Rose is a young Londoner who started the S.T.O.P. (Solve This Ongoing Problem) campaign after he saw friends and family members killed by gun and knife crime. He cites his campaign highlights as: Getting the support of Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the Tutu Foundation Winning an award from the Body Shop Speaking at schools …

Getting the name right

Governments around the world are doing everything they can to rename swine flu. They will not succeed and will end up misinforming the public.  Gerry McGovern’s latest “New Thinking” newsletter is about Governments’ attempts to rename swine flu. He focuses on the disconnect between government and international agencies’ concerns: national pride, religious sensibilities, business interests; …

For words to even better effect – just add music

Tommaso Chiarolini, an Italian designer and illustrator now based in Edinburgh, sent me this link. It’s from Playing for Change: Peace through Music and it cheered me up on a wet and grey May Day. I hope it does the same for you.