May 2007
It's grim up North
May 23, 2007
I’m off to the North-East of England for a week, and someone I mentioned this to reacted by saying, amongst other things, "it’s grim up North". This is an expression I’ve heard many, many times without ever wondering where...
The gender of nouns
May 22, 2007
The Cutty Sark has been destroyed by a fire. This morning on the news, the journalists were obviously referring to the ship as a "she", which didn’t surprise me. However, this reminded me of a conversation I had a few...
How bilinguals switch between tongues
May 21, 2007
Bilingualism is a topic which interests me, and it's been mentioned on this blog in my entry language and the brain and Caroline and Daniel's second language acquisition and bilingual language processing. Now Xavier has sent me a link to...
Lorsque and elision
May 14, 2007
This blogosphere lark is a tiny, tiny world. In doubt as to when exactly the word lorsque qualifies for an elision (lorsqu’Arnold or lorsque Arnold?), (hey, be indulgent, it’s Monday!) I found this extremely useful page on elision, which reminded...
Tony Blair congratulates Nicolas Sarkozy in French
May 10, 2007
Not bad, Tony, not bad. via Omniglot...
Goodbye to la belle France?
May 9, 2007
There is an article in today’s Guardian about how France might change now that Sarkozy is in charge. What interested me most was a few statistics comparing the USA, which the new president openly admires and wants to emulate, and...
Candide
May 4, 2007
I couldn’t resist buying this superb new English translation of Voltaire’s Candide, one of my all-time favourite books. I’ve been reading about the presidential candidates all week, following their progress in anticipation of the final round on Sunday, and...
Translation and proofreading
May 2, 2007
I often receive emails from readers asking me about translation and being a freelance translator. I thought that I would share some of them, along with my responses, as they might be of interest to other people. Antonia asked me...
Bad, bad translator
May 1, 2007
Thank you Laurence for sending me an article about what happens when translators get facetious. Sarkozy, in fact, said "I invite the French people to rally behind me". Bad, bad translator (awful sentence as well, tut tut), and I...