Tuesday’s post (15 March) was inspired by Newcastle University’s study of Japanese- and English-speakers’ perceptions of the word “blue”. From an English-Italian translation perspective, “blue” is an interesting word, and something of a false friend. The Italian “blu” refers to dark or navy blue, while “azzurro” is used for other shades of the colour. And …
Tag archives: words
Plume
I wrote a post last June entitled “La plume de ma tante…”, about the associations of the word “plume”. In 2010 we had the ash plume from Eyjafjallajökull, in Iceland, and the plume produced by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. And now we’re hearing about a radioactive plume from Japan’s stricken Fukushima nuclear …
Planked away
My mother, who’s 85, was discharged from hospital last week. Her local pharmacy makes up a weekly blister pack dividing out her medication for each day. Yesterday, she got a bit confused and took her pills at the wrong time. My sister Eileen decided to hide the medicines away until Mum can manage better for …
And sometimes words are just soooo interesting!
I’ve just been reading Khoi Vinh’s marvellous blog, Subtraction. In his post on “Ways I’m a Dork: Travel Edition” he describes the Grid-It Organizer from Cocoon. The Grid-It holds “all the paraphernalia — cables, remotes, pens, dongles, adapters, etc.” that most of us now need to pack for work trips (and probably holidays too). The …
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Words
This lovely video, produced by Everynone for Radiolab, has been doing the rounds on Twitter, so you may already have seen it. It bears repeat viewing, I think. It’s about words and also about our common humanity. I find it moving. Serendipity is a lovely word and a lovely concept. Shortly after watching the Words …
Fuzzy words? – not always
A quick PS to yesterday’s post on the use of the Italian adeguamento (correction, adjustment) to signify aumento (increase). Italy’s Regulatory Authority for Electricity and Gas uses the term aggiornamento (literally “up-dating” ) when referring to its quarterly gas and electricity price adjustments. Energy tariffs are linked to oil and natural gas prices on the …
La plume de ma tante…
“La plume de ma tante est sur la table” is often cited as an example of the irrelevant rote learning that used to give language teaching a bad name. Here’s an overview of the etymology of “plume”: 1. From Online Etymology Dictionary: plume late 14c., “a feather” (especially a large and conspicuous one), from O.Fr. plume, from …
…and the words the world just can’t abide
The British Council’s 75th anniversary poll of its students’ English language preferences also surveyed their least favoured words. The 10 most disliked English words were: Cancer Racism Corruption Terrorism Slavery Flatulence Killing Study Herringbone Fail Pretty understandable choices, although flatulence seems a far lesser evil compared with others on the list. But you can’t help …
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English words the world likes…
My last post was about words we don’t like. This one’s about words we do. To celebrate its 75th anniversary in 2009, the British Council conducted a poll to find out its students’ favourite English words. The top ten were: Love God Peace Awesome Hello Freedom Gorgeous Sunshine Health Happiness In another poll, carried out …