July 2006

Chouette

July 31, 2006

Chouette chouette Chouette, adjective Great. From Old French choeter, to be appearance-conscious, smart, or from Italian civetta (a smart, appearance-conscious woman). Chouette, feminine noun Owl. Diminutive form of Old French choue, from popular Latin cawa. ---------------------------- UPDATE Oh dear....

Grammatical mistake?

July 27, 2006

Paul and I have had a debate about the following copy. I think there's a grammatical mistake in it, Paul thinks it looks like a mistake but sounds right, and hence isn't really a mistake. His client agrees with him....

100 words for 100 years

July 17, 2006

Askoxford.com mentions Susie Dent's Fanboys and Overdogs, in which she selects one word to represent each of the last hundred years. "Not all of them bear heavy historical significance, but each captures something of the cultural vibrancy of the year...

How to organise your emails

July 14, 2006

What would I do without Lifehacker? And I only discovered it two days ago (thanks, Tom!). This piece on how to empty your inbox and manage it efficiently has helped me revolutionise the way I organise my email (before: a...

Professional

July 12, 2006

I was having lunch with 15 friends and talking about the imminent departure of our very loud upstairs neighbour, who has made us feel like we were living under a busy R&B club for the last year and a half....

Trados makes Word crash

July 7, 2006

Are you a Trados user? Have you had problems with it recently? Namely, does Word crash every time you try and use Trados to do a translation? This thread on proz will help you remove the Microsoft Update which is...

Coup du sombrero

July 4, 2006

Now I’m not one to boast: I’m mentioning my latest footballing triumph purely for a linguistic purpose (and the World Cup is on, after all). I did a superb "coup du sombrero" last Wednesday (not just on anyone! On...