People think I can spell, but I cannot spell as well as all that. Innocuous as it may seem, I am currently beating myself up for not knowing that "inoculate" is spelt with one N. Thank goodness for red squiggly lines on the screen. The upside is that I discovered that "oculate" is not the... Continue Reading →
e-meeting
No, the title is not an attempt to graphically represent a mispronunciation of the English word "emitting". The above expression was found in the slogan of one of the companies permitted to do e-marketing at the annual, week-long virtual conference for freelance translators hosted by an organisation of which I am a subscribed member. In... Continue Reading →
Thanks, Oprah!
She's still looking good, folks! Yes, I am talking about Oprah Winfrey and her gratitude journal. Are you wondering what sudden rush of blood to the head brought this on? I can see at least one of my favourite cousins making a face already. Well , back in the day when media was not quite so... Continue Reading →
Imagine that you’re monolingual
My dislike of making phone calls collided with the necessity of phoning customer support to reconfigure my modem after our recent bout of liquid sun. Viewed objectively, I could help myself in two ways: I could order a new landline instrument so that I do not have to use my cheap cellphone on which I... Continue Reading →
Simon, Garfunkel and Yoda
It all started when a fellow translator posted an image of Yoda, of Star Wars fame, on her Facebook wall. The speech balloon said, "OOYL", which, of course, is short for "Only once, you live". Despite obvious pronunciation difficulties, I prefer Yoda's rendition to the now ubiquitous YOLO. "My favourite, he is", I commented. "Ha!",... Continue Reading →
Going dental
I was going to call this post "a day in the life" or some such, but that simply would not be true. A more apt description would be an irregular day in the life during my least productive summer on record. Whenever I have something to do which is going to disrupt my preferred pattern,... Continue Reading →
Bananas!
There is nothing so wonderful as coming across exciting news by accident. Little did I know, whilst struggling with a capricious Internet connection as I was researching EU regulations on biodiversity and the like - as translators do - that today I would stumble upon a remarkable piece of information: The banana genome has been sequenced!... Continue Reading →
Heatwave
Perhaps the title of this blog is a little premature, since the most unbearable – or glorious, depending on your work plans – days are yet to come. A few weeks ago – during our first heatwave of the season – one of the agencies who keeps me quite busy asked what my plans were for the summer.... Continue Reading →
Country Mouse
Country Mouse. That's me. How ironic that I have just been fiddling about with a translation discussing globalisation. Nevertheless, once a country mouse, always a country mouse. Town mice will find this lack of sophistication mildly amusing, and somewhat puzzling. What town mice won't realise is that for country mice, almost everything is an adventure.... Continue Reading →
The Neurologist
It is Monday morning 09:20. João and I find ourselves at Faro Hospital for her appointment with her neurologist, the first in eight months. She has relapsing-remitting Multiple Sclerosis finally diagnosed seventeen years ago and has been taking daily Copaxone(R) injections for about two years. She is on a downward slide, yet as Rousseau said,... Continue Reading →
That elusive pair of jeans 