April 2005
Guest blogger: Accent and pronunciation
April 29, 2005
By Ricard Giner Has anyone noticed that people confuse "accent" with "pronunciation" or am I alone in thinking that there is a meaningful distinction? I will explain. Often people say, of a person who is not a native speaker of,...
Claiming tax relief
April 27, 2005
Remember this? Well, check this out: My office has turned into a spare bedroom, which has tax relief implications. It is quite difficult to find accurate information regarding tax relief; every time I called the Inland Revenue, I received...
Benoît
April 25, 2005
The new Pope's choice of name, Benedict, has been dissected and analysed by the British press in a bid to discover what kind of reign his will be, here and here for example. In French, he is known as Benoît,...
Why I don't like bidding systems
April 20, 2005
I don't think many people could imagine a lawyer bidding to get a contract in reply to an ad saying, "Legal advice needed for big company, please offer your best price, no more than $5 an hour please." Yet this...
Irony
April 18, 2005
1. a. The use of words to express something different from and often opposite to their literal meaning. b. An expression or utterance marked by a deliberate contrast between apparent and intended meaning. c. A literary style employing such contrasts...
Aggregator
April 14, 2005
Transblawg gives a link to a very handy language blog aggregator (delightfully named langwich sandwich) created by Kalebeul 's Trevor. I'd quite like to know why he chose to list the French version of this blog and not the English...
When the Web lingo was new
April 11, 2005
It's amazing how new words and expressions get assimilated by language in the Internet age, to the point where a word that is new one year is commonly and globally used the next. I found this article called "When the...
April showers and Giboulées de mars
April 8, 2005
Yesterday, on my way to the shops, I was caught in what I would describe as a giboulée de mars. Now, as I live in Britain, the nearest translation I have is April shower (even though the de mars part...
Babelport
April 6, 2005
Chris Hansel emailed me last week to let me know of Babelport, a new translation portal of which he is a co-founder. It's extremely promising, the tone is engaging and friendly and I really like the design (could it be...
Pope Joan
April 4, 2005
The extensive coverage of Pope John Paul II's death reminded me of a poem by Carol Ann Duffy (from The World's Wife), which, to me, is a perfect example of how language can be used to challenge established ways of...
I'm outta here
April 1, 2005
I've really suffered from having to stay in my office this winter. The grey weather in particular hasn’t done much to entice me out. Not only have I found it hard for the first time in five years to be...