Month: August 2011

Worst ever Spanish covers of English-language songs?

I haven’t talked to any of the perpetrators, but I have little doubt that the principal cause of what we regard as fucked translation is a misunderstanding as to its function: whereas English-speakers expect to encounter a linguistic resource, the aim of Romance-dialect-speaking businesses, politicians and civil servants in providing English translation is often symbolic…

How Emperor Charles V ended up talking German to his horse (1)

Domain-based code-switching from Daniel Bomberg’s Jerusalem Talmud to Hieronymus Fabricius’ De locutione. Featuring the wit and wisdom of Rabbi Jonathan of Beth Gubrin, Padua’s medical school and Jewry, and the Polish utopian Jan Zamoyski. With excerpts from Fellini’s I Clowns and a bodice-ripper by Kent M Chater, whose Agent Alighieri claims that “Like the great Emperor Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire and King of Spain I speak Spanish with God, French with men, German to my horse, and Italian to the ladies.”

Charles V and his horse discussing sociolinguistics before the Battle of Mühlberg (Titian <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Carlos_V_en_M%C3%BChlberg,_by_Titian,_from_Prado_in_Google_Earth.jpg'>@Prado</a>).

Ear, ear

How to get drugs without a prescription on match days.