Editing and proofreading should be paid more on account of the monotony factor. I have survived the most recent doctoral thesis to tell the tale. Some interesting ideas were contained therein. I see from my draft blogs that I must have, at some point late one night, had a private rant, the edited version of... Continue Reading →
Horace and the Daily Constitutional
"O fons Bandusiae" is the entirety of what I remember of this ode from Horace. In my mind it is linked to possibly the worst head cold I ever had in my life during an examination, and a rather strange "D" symbol next to the word "Latin" on my O-level result slip back in the... Continue Reading →
Dynamic Views on International Translators’ Day
Blogger has introduced "dynamic view" templates. Looks like I shall have to illustrate every blog if I use the new view. This would defeat the objective of writing to create a picture in the first place.The dynamic view does not look very dynamic, because the gadget sidebar was entirely eliminated. I have return to the... Continue Reading →
In search of a red hat
The only possible excuse for my not already owning a deep red fedora is that I am not fond of shopping. I am certainly not fond of shopping for a particular item. Indeed, I liken the recent formal necessity for navy blue shoes to having an aspirin dissolve in one's mouth before it can be... Continue Reading →
The original fish
The earliest memory I have of my integrity being called into question was when I was twelve. Our headmaster took one class a week called "Creative Writing". I do believe this lesson was supposed to teach us to use our imagination at the very stage when most of us stand on the painful cusp of... Continue Reading →
Words, phonemes and Wordle
One great use of words is to hide our thoughts.Thus spake Voltaire.One great use of quotations in translation is to hide the original. That is what I say. My web search skills must still be in need of improvement. I have not found the original French yet. Any light anyone can shed on the matter... Continue Reading →
Books, Art, Cakes and Kindles
I am a book-lover. What other reason would there be for ogling the Kindle advertisement?As a child I used to spend a good part of my Saturday mornings browsing in the second-hand book exchange above the butchery my mother visited every week. It was, I believe, run by a woman by the name of Marion Arnold,... Continue Reading →
Hypertext me, why don’t you?
This was not my idea. I stumbled upon something someone else found and posted in my favourite translators' forum that got me going.Today marks 20 years of the official launch into the public domain of the World Wide Web. We have the Englishman Tim Berners-Lee, primarily to thank for this. He was the one who wrote... Continue Reading →
Click
The click I am referring to is not the sound this rather poor attempt English makes at onomatopoeia. It is the sound made when the isiXhosa word qongqothwane is correctly pronounced. Listen carefully as to how that oh-so-grand lady Miriam Makeba does it in a number made famous as The Click Song.It is also the sound... Continue Reading →
The Vine Book
Follow the links as you read what follows: Asides have been highlighted in green. You can tell that I am a serious person from Eve Corbel's useful editing guide above. Or I take myself seriously. One of the two. Maybe both. I am also constantly amused and quite often silly. I am seldom silly when... Continue Reading →
That elusive pair of jeans 