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 →
What goes through my mind when I translate?
Even if a source text word has twenty possible synonyms in the target language, the context narrows that possibility down to two, say. Then, with the incisiveness of a butcher cutting up a carcass, we choose 'the one'. A great deal of deliberation is often required before one can be so incisive.
I had such fun liaising with Catherine Jan on my recent guest post on her blog, Catherine Translates. It was a pleasure working with a fellow translator who knows her stuff. At the risk of creating one of those dreaded circular references so often found in Excel spreadsheets, here is the link: http://www.catherinetranslates.com/translating-large-volume-book-connections-corrections/ I have made... Continue Reading →
Back then in the backwater
I invite you to listen to this gem, The Continental, featuring the beautiful voice of Maureen McGovern overlaid with images of equally exquisite dancing by Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. Now, I ask you to imagine, if you possibly can, an overworked translator attempting to imitate all of the above in her slippers, singing the... 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 →
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 →
How to wash the dishes
There is a BBC comedy skit program where a typical farmer fellow comes out of a barn and announces, "This year, I shall mainly be wearing Dolce&Gabbana.". He turns heel in his galoshes, returns to the barn and shuts the door. I am fond of quoting variations on this theme, by way of light relief... Continue Reading →
Incurably curious. Curiously incurable.
I might as well get it out of my system now; confess, if you will. I love words. I love reading dictionaries. [If I were making a speech at a golf club, say, I would have lost about ninety per cent of my audience already. It is possible to love words and golf, or books and... Continue Reading →
That elusive pair of jeans 