Put simply: one bleats and the other is published When I’m wearing my private tutor’s hat, I always advise my pupils that if they hear a word they don’t know the meaning of three times within a week, it’s definitely time to look it up. My theory is that if they’ve heard a word that …
You may not be a trained writer, but you’ve still laboured valiantly to the end of a marathon 26-page marketing report for an important client – an epic feat of writing endeavour, which has caused you to sacrifice numerous social engagements (not to mention the odd rainforest…). At this point, the perfect scenario would be …
Spellcheckers – the proofreader’s friend or foe? Read More »
How the digital age has revolutionised translation research A recent “big” birthday set me thinking about how much the translation industry has changed in the almost three decades since I emerged one sunny July afternoon from the Assembly Halls in Edinburgh, clutching a document (encased in a red cardboard tube) which proclaimed me to …
Lost in translation – when there simply is no “mot juste”… On a recent Ryanair flight to Beauvais airport, Paris – there to spend an all-too-brief weekend with two of my offspring – I happened across an article in the in-flight magazine that caught my eager linguist’s eye. It was a single page on which …
Is Grammar a Goner? When the cartoon to the left appeared on my Facebook page recently, I promptly shared it, as I suspected it would appeal to several friends who, like me, are fascinated by matters grammatical and orthographical. Responses to the cartoon ranged from a teenager’s desperate “Oh gosh, please no” to an adult’s …
