November 2004
Langue sauce piquante
November 30, 2004
Thanks to Transblawg and Language Hat for mentioning Langue sauce piquante, a very promising new blog written (in French! Hurrah!) by Le Monde's proofreaders. They talk about language, expressions, words, in fact, everything I like. Their most recent entry on...
Flip-flop
November 29, 2004
Well, that's a weight off my shoulders. I didn't let it transpire on this blog, but I was quite stressed during the whole American election campaign. The reason? I just couldn't for the life of me figure out how to...
Happy as Larry
November 26, 2004
A reader asked me about the origin of the expression "happy as Larry", which means being very happy. It looks like nobody is entirely sure. It was first recorded in 1905 and according to abc.net, "Sidney J Baker, in his...
Marmite
November 23, 2004
We were looking at the menu of a very nice London restaurant on Saturday when one of my co-lunchers exclaimed: "Monkfish tail "en marmite"??! Whaaaat? Fish in Marmite?" Tut tut. Those Engleesh. I reassured my friend: "Of course not. Marmite...
Toff
November 19, 2004
Fox-hunting is set to become illegal in England and Wales. The debate around this issue has been raging for some time and the word toff, used by some to describe those who practice the blood sport, caught my attention. This...
What is Britishness?
November 16, 2004
All is revealed in this report published by The Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufacturers and Commerce (RSA) (via The Guardian)...
Comme une image
November 15, 2004
For those of you who love French cinema (and just cinema!), do not miss Comme une image (English title: Look at me). It's an excellent social satire, with brilliant dialogues and performances. As an aside, I think the title is...
Happy blogday!
November 11, 2004
This blog is one year old today. I started it for purely professional reasons, to offer something different to potential clients and to stand out from all the other translators' websites out there. I never thought that it would actually...
France's national emblem
November 9, 2004
It's funny how you sometimes accept things without thinking twice. I had never really questioned why the cockerel should be the emblem for France, and found it perfectly natural to see them run around on football and rugby pitches later...
Hacker
November 8, 2004
Today I've come across the word hacker. These "new" terms linked to the Internet, generally English, are difficult to deal with because no one agrees on how to translate them at first; it takes a few years for the more...
Enrichment
November 5, 2004
I've already mentioned a technique called enrichment (or stuffing, as Anthony likes to call it). I use it all the time, mainly because of English prepositions: they are very supple and flexible, which makes them difficult to translate using French...
What is localisation?
November 3, 2004
Localisation is a hot topic in the translation industry. This is the definition preferred by the Localization Industry Standards Association (LISA): "Localization involves taking a product and making it linguistically and culturally appropriate to the target locale (country/region and language)...