Just a warning that the site may be even more chaotic over the next couple of days. This is because I’ve taken a deep breath and decided to do stuff like kick out virtually all non-data tables in favour of CSS2-based layouts (= quicker site + more display/media options) and switch to UTF-8 (= more…
This is absolutely revolutionary: la Real Academia Española, the Spanish version of l’Académie Française, is going to include internet in its new dictionary. It was felt that such a move would have been premature when the previous revision was made in 2001.
Sorry, but anyone tell me whether the following William Dunbar quote refers to the long battle by Dorset priests to rid their churches of scrumpy ‘n’ western, to yet another destruction of Leicester City FC’s charity team, or to skirmishes between farmers and those legendary mint tea-crazed monsters? Done is a battell on the dragon…
The excellent Mr Pullum highlights the attempts of the Plain English Conspiracy to destroy Donald Rumsfeld. There is, of course, nothing wrong with the example for which they awarded Ronald (as La Vanguardia’s Asian correspondent calls him) their Foot in Mouth trophy; indeed, a glance at their list of previous winners suggests that they have…
Three people tell me that 10-15 years ago when they were kids they used to use guay amongst themselves in the way Ms/Mr Fages suggests in my original post, eg Esto es guay de(l) Paraguay. One thought the phrase came from a song or radio ad but, strangely, none of them was aware of the…
Geen van de zes belangrijke partijen in de regionale verkiezingen volgende week zondag heeft een functionele website in het Spaans, zegt Libertad Digital vandaag. Dit ondanks het feit dat de moedertaal van meer dan de helft van de bevolking van Catalunya Spaans is. Het zeer amateuristische Españoles Bajo el Separatismo (Spanjaarden Onder het Separatisme) wil…
Dictionaries source the Spanish word guay (current meaning: cool/super/excellent/smashing) back to an (Arab) cry, ay. This never makes any kind of sense to me, since the latter is used to signal woe, grief and all manner of misery. Where did the current guay come from, and how (if at all) did this reversal of meaning…
Transblawg posts re the adaptation of the language used in British novels for the American market and vice versa. This subject also occasionally exercises John of Iberian Notes (2003/10/17, for example), who thinks that it’s time we Brits started caring again about the eccentric pastimes of folk who were so very rude to us only…