A divine contribution from our principal supplier suggests that the semantic range of “push” along the hardness axis is more limited than that of “empujar”, which may or may not be true, but which achieves the main object – that users think critically about the door and elect a solution that will not lead to…
Featuring a passing neighbour of the maker, Diabolus.org: I’m awaiting somewhat trepidly surgery which I hope will clean up what little is left of my left inner and middle ear and put in some kind of replacement (posts here and here; latest addition to the lexicon, cholesteatoma, incipient; the Messiah), but between various other recent…
Carlos nominates Emilio Botín, who is spending €77 million on a cultural centre in Santander but hasn’t got €77 for someone to translate his bank’s ATM screens, never mind a lawyer to check that it has been done. Asked for comment, the department of equestrian psychology at Glyndwr how the fuck do you get a…
Admirable, artless Almerians (via Lenox – donate, you tight bastards): From the Department of Tourism understand that dining is a cornerstone in the development of the tourist experience. The quality, diversity and professionalism of our restaurants are in themselves a good reason to travel Mojácar. Our wealth joins culinary tradition, innovation, good facilities and very…
The sender tells me this story about the Eurobarmeter (sic) has been improved since publication, but it’s still pretty crap. I think the linguistic establishment takes a quite complex view of the merits of learning a subsidiary dialect, in this case Spanglish, as an introduction to full Estuary or Hudson. [Apparently my English was crap…
The Daily Mail and Tesco and various translation pundits just booked themselves into the nether stretches of the intestines of linguistic hell. From the Mule: I’m not hungry, thanks! Tesco brands Finest spaghetti bolognese ‘the balls of grandad’ Packaging features signs from an Italian market advertising ‘Le Palle de Nonno’ and ‘Coglioni di Mulo’ They…
Why’s the Spanish translation not called “Celsius 233”? Because its perceived market consists not of book-devouring hermits who care about the relationship between title and text, but of exhibitionists in search of accessories symbolising of culture and modernity? Why worry about book-burning when no one reads the damn things anyway?
Lenox’s take on the tourism department in Mojácar, where, including unregistered residents, there are probably at least as many British- as Spanish-born, but where it doesn’t occur to the (ruling) Spanish-speakers to ask the (generally leisured) English-speakers for paid or unpaid help with tourist promotion. Some of the German press this morning are probably reaffirming…
![Richard Tanner, late Inspector in the Metropolitan Detective Police Force. Born October 30th 1831, died October 19th 1873. [Also wife and mother-in-law.]](https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-xofHafv88w4/T_wWdZwAO2I/AAAAAAABASs/EROVgCGThps/s1000/P1090088.JPG "Richard Tanner, late Inspector in the Metropolitan Detective Police Force. Born October 30th 1831, died October 19th 1873. [Also wife and mother-in-law.]")
