Category: languagePage 1 of 4
What do these words have in common: awkward birth dirt gap ill mire muggy ransack rotten rugged scant scathe scowl wrong?
The drink takes its name from the color of the monks’ robes.
Just found out today (from someone who actually watched it) that this is online. I guess it’s been up for years.
“Shamed by you English? You can speak soon and write like a graduate college if me let you help for a day of 15 minutes.”
How does a hurricane move? It “barrels” and “churns,” to judge from the most popular verbs. “Lumbers” is the oddest verb choice, yet it is used rather often,…
Jill Schoolman of Archipelago Books asked recently if I would be interested in translating the major twentieth-century Spanish poet Jose Angel Valente. As it happens I would, and…
El Pais is talking about a new Dictionary of Americanisms (Diccionario de americanismos) published by the Asociación de Academias de la Lengua in Madrid under the direction of…
This may be the earliest example of written English to survive in a British church. Recently discovered on a wall in Salisbury Cathedral, Wiltshire, it probably dates from…
“Hilburn . . . had the access and longevity to get to know musicians better than few in the media do today.” — Associated Press Is “better than…
Right Reading received the following e-mail (slightly edited) from Jag Bhalla.
A study by a research team appointed by the European Commission finds that multililngualism may benefit brains in a variety of ways: learning in general complex thinking and…
As I have mentioned, I’ve just returned from a vacation in Italy, and some posts will be a little off-topic for the next few days. Somewhere along the…
Have you ever noticed that the longer you look at any word the stranger it begins to seem? The other day a squirrel ran in front of my…
Do they sound tasty? Google Translate thinks so (if they’re marinated). Via Google Blogoscoped: .
“Good sense is a thing all need, few have, and none think they want.” — Benjamin Franklin “I strove with none; for none was worth my strife.” —…
Some authors rail against copy editors, and, sadly, the editors sometimes bring the enmity upon themselves. The latest author with a copy editor horror story is George Lakoff,…
I once edited some books by Guy Davenport, who said that he didnt want any of those hideous quotation mark thingees to appear anywhere in his books. As…
Copper Canyon has been selected by the NEA be the U.S. publisher for its International Literary Exchange with China. According to Publishers Weekly, “Copper Canyon will receive $117,000…
I’m on the road and having trouble with my internet connection. So this will be brief. I’ve mentioned I’ve been helping to judge a translation award. Now that…
Via Craigslist: .
Right Reading received this e-mail from Olivia Sears, president of the Center for the Art of Translation. I hope you are all enjoying The Best of Contemporary Mexican…
Aoccrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny ipormoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat…
According to BusinessWriting.com, these are the 25 most commonly misspelled words in English. I don’t consider myself a very good speller, for an editor (I just look everything…
Remember the restaurant known in English as Translate Server Error? Well, be thankful the directions for finding it were not in Welsh.