February 2004
Martinet
February 27, 2004
I just finished subtitling one of the bonus features to be found on the Police Academy DVD collection that will be coming out soon. Start saving folks! One of the actors describes Lieutenant Harris (the nasty teacher in the academy)...
Katharine Gun cleared of all charges
February 26, 2004
What would you do if, in the course of your work, you saw a document indicating that the US National Security Agency was putting pressure on your government to perform illegal acts of surveillance of other nations? Katharine Gun, a...
A translator and an interpreter
February 25, 2004
Translators who, like me, are also interpreters, seem to be an odd kind of beast to most people. In the village where I grew up, Saint Martin de Hinx, my mum owns a minuscule shop, which brings you back a...
Callipygian
February 23, 2004
I came across this word whilst playing Cranium with friends. My unfortunate partner and I had to correctly identify the meaning of this word from a list of four possible options. Now I'm quite proud of my knowledge of words...
Less and Fewer
February 20, 2004
"Have you heard what Mike Tomlinson said?" Gabrielle was clearly annoyed. Mike Tomlinson used to be Head of Ofsted (Office for Standards in Education) and is currently reviewing the A-Level system. As a teacher, she was probably concerned about the...
Semicolon says yes to gay marriage
February 18, 2004
Margaret Marks, of Transblawg, reports this interesting story of how a semicolon scuppered conservative groups' plans to stop gay marriages in San Francisco (via SFGate.com): Two judges delayed taking any action Tuesday to shut down San Francisco's same-sex wedding spree,...
Homophobia
February 16, 2004
Simon Hoggart, in his diary published in the Guardian , tells us that, from an etymological point of view, this term is absolutely nonsensical. If we break it up, we see that it is made of: Homo – it could...
Cockney Rhyming Slang Translator
February 12, 2004
A little treat courtesy of whoohoo.co.uk: a cockney rhyming slang translator. I entered this: But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun. Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon, Who...
Borrowing
February 11, 2004
I had a problem recently with the term "mule". Within the context of drug trafficking, a mule is a person who carries drugs in her or his body across frontiers. In French, the term "passeur" or "passeuse" can be used...
Neck of the Woods
February 9, 2004
"Neck of the woods" is a particularly odd expression to use when you live in a city and that the nearest thing to a wood around your house is the trees that line your street. However, saying "in my neck...
Entre chien et loup
February 6, 2004
Of all the expressions in the French language, Entre chien et loup (literally translated as between dog and wolf) has to be my all-time favourite. It was brought to my attention by Meredith, who came across the phrase in an...
Eats, Shoots and Leaves
February 5, 2004
I recommend Eats, Shoots and Leaves, by Lynne Truss, to anyone with a vague interest in punctuation but who can’t face an arid textbook on do’s and don’t’s. Or who feels that sitting on a bus or a train reading...
Adaptation 2
February 4, 2004
Good old Flintstones, keeping me on my toes and helping to provide a better example of adaptation. Fred, following a series of events that would be too complicated to describe here, ends up giving Wilma the ring Barney bought for...
Tarzan and His Mate
February 2, 2004
When I said yes to subtitling Tarzan And His Mate (1934), I was never expecting to learn so much about feminism in the 1930s and censorship in Hollywood. But then, that's one of the perks of working with films: you...