There is a smidgin of joy in every pile of paper.
Piling systems
Structure
Scrambled smidgins of linguistic joy.
Sword and shield
Give us a farving, 'Squire!
Bog and glue
All writers need to hone their craft. I was feeling guilty about one paragraph in yesterday's blog. It contained one long, unruly sentence. I should have deleted it. I did not. The blog would have been better without it. As I was thinking about it again this morning, I got a promotional e-mail from PerfectIt... Continue Reading →
The translation that wasn’t
In my world, words on boxes have to make sense.
Industry: Other
I got all excited when today's exercise tidying up my e-mail folders revealed that The Economist Intelligence Unit had sent me a complimentary copy their special report entitled "Industries in 2014". If you haven't clicked away from this page already, let me tell you a story about how this is connected to language in general... Continue Reading →
A good ‘un
I was checking online whether my translation from Portuguese into English of a Chinese proverb matched the commonly accepted rendition in English. As one does. I should mention that I do not normally take the answers found at wiki.answers.com as Gospel for obvious reasons, but have occasionally found some useful leads there by way of... Continue Reading →
Old translators never die
The cadence of one of my translated sentences yesterday reminded me about the fate of old golfers, and I could not remember whether real men eat quiche or not. If the truth be told, I was not entirely sure if Kisch was involved. That advice about sounding out the word in your head in order... Continue Reading →
The written word
Do you think that outrage is adequately expressed by a frowny face emoticon?
A Chuck and Beans webcomic from the 16th:
Texting is, of course, the written word. But then there are emoticons.
Secure syntax and moral excellence
The picture of a pot purple petunias against a background of a yellow rose creeper cannot be uploaded because of my slow Internet connection. Never mind. It has nothing to do with the blog at all. I had an English Literature teacher in my senior years at school who deplored those who mistook "moral squeamishness... Continue Reading →
That elusive pair of jeans 