In modern English, express is a verb meaning – broadly – to convey information, generally of a more personal nature, as well as an adjective meaning very fast. From the verb, we have formulas such as ‘expression of regret’, ‘self-expression’, ‘expressing milk’, whilst we get ‘express train’ and ‘express delivery’ from the adjective. But the […]
We have a lot of trouble with food. A tortilla de patatas, for example, could be translated as Spanish omelette. But should we assume that English speakers know that what a tortilla is? Should you translate it as Spanish omelette even though (in the UK, at least) a Spanish omelette is a curious concoction of […]
The fire protection and security industry is now Quicksilver’s strongest area of specialisation. This is largely due to our President’s experience of more than 30 years in international management positions in this industry. As Tyco International’s former Global Director of Marketing and Communications, Colin has unmatched, first-hand experience of the issues and challenges of producing […]
AFRIKAANS geseënde Kersfees ALBANIAN gëzuar Krishtlindja ALSATIAN gleckika Wïanachta ARABIC ميلاد مجيد (miilaad majiid) ARMENIAN Shnorhavor Surb tsnund AZERI Noel bayraminiz mubarak BASQUE Eguberri on BELARUSIAN З Божым нараджэннем (Z Bozym naradzenniem) BENGALI subho baradin BOSNIAN sretan Božić BRETON Nedeleg laouen
Nuestro mañana será más luminoso [sic] que nuestro ayer y nuestro hoy. Pero ¿quién pondría la mano en el fuego en cuanto a que nuestro pasado mañana no vaya a ser peor que nuestro anteayer? [Our tomorrow will be more luminous than our yesterday and our today. But who would put their hand in the […]
The word slave comes from the Byzantine Greek σκλάβος, via Middle Latin Sclavus, from which root Italian gets schiavo, French esclave, and Spanish esclavo. The original meaning of the word was ‘Slav’, as in ‘Slavic’: apparently a certain Otto the Great was such a prolific vanquisher and enslaver of Slavic peoples that the two terms […]
We have a lot of trouble with food. A tortilla de patatas, for example, could be translated as Spanish omelette. But should we assume that English speakers know that what a tortilla is? Should you translate it as Spanish omelette even though (in the UK, at least) a Spanish omelette is a curious concoction of […]
But Georges Perec is the doyen of perverse, lipogrammic constraints. His La Disparition (1969), or The Disappearance, famously avoids any use of the letter ‘e’, as does Gilbert Adair’s prize winning English translation A Void. Other translations impose similar limitations – the Spanish version, El secuestro, for example, avoids ‘a’, the most common vowel in […]
We blogged recently on the fact that most languages have their own word for ‘butterfly’, even when they share most of the rest of their animal vocabulary with neighbours or a common source language. A similar phenomenon adheres in the case of transliterations of the crowing of the rooster, or male chicken, which in English […]
This lovely poem by Goethe was set to music by both Schubert and Tchaikovsky: Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt Weiß, was ich leide! Allein und abgetrennt Von aller Freude, Seh ich ans Firmament Nach jener Seite. Ach! der mich liebt und kennt, Ist in der Weite. Es schwindelt mir, es brennt Mein Eingeweide. Nur wer […]