Category Archives: language

(Sic) as a parrot

Posted on May 28, 2008 by Charles Lambert

Watching daytime TV yesterday (yes, I’ve been staying with my mother), I noticed spelling mistakes in two consecutive ads. In the first, for a removal company (I think), ‘geographical’ was spelt ‘georgraphical’ (note the intrusive ‘r’). In the second, claims … Continue reading →

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A question of style

Posted on May 25, 2008 by Charles Lambert

Yesterday’s Independent had two stories that reflected each other in the revelatory way skewed mirrors sometimes do. The first had to do with Naomi Campbell, who is still spitting fire about her treatment at the hands of British Airways. She … Continue reading →

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Error

Posted on May 5, 2008 by Charles Lambert

There’s an error in the previous post. Where I say ‘adoring’ I meant to say ‘adorning’. I could have just corrected it but why waste a layer of meaning, albeit unintentional? As long as the ports have names for the … Continue reading →

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Punto e virgola

Posted on April 9, 2008 by Charles Lambert

Each culture gets the windbag it deserves. Italy has Pietro Citati, a man who imagines that, by writing about Kafka, Goethe, Proust, et al, he’s somehow earning his own place in the pantheon. What Citati doesn’t seem to have realised … Continue reading →

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Spelling

Posted on January 28, 2008 by Charles Lambert

I was writing about Berlusconi in a private email (yes, I’m obsessed) and my Google spell-check didn’t recognise him. I clicked to see what alternatives I was offered and found, at the top of the list, wanderlust. So maybe it … Continue reading →

Posted in berlusconi, language | 1 Comment

Health

Posted on December 20, 2007 by Charles Lambert

There’s an interesting piece today by Peter Popham, the Independent’s Rome correspondent, about his experiences with the Italian health system. Under an unnecessarily gloomy headline (Thinking of travelling to Italy for treatment? I would think again), the article kicks off … Continue reading →

Posted in italy, language | 3 Comments

Grim reaper

Posted on December 15, 2007 by Charles Lambert

There’s a jolly piece by Andy McSmith in today’s Independent. Entitled Dancing on their graves and triggered by Tina Turner’s unsurprisingly cool response to her ex-husband’s demise, it casts an eye over some of the more memorably sour, if not … Continue reading →

Posted in death, good riddance, language | 2 Comments

Magari

Posted on November 19, 2007 by Charles Lambert

All English speakers of Italian will know how useful the little word magari can be. It expresses regret or longing, irritation or delight, according to tone and context. Whatever it means, it means it more effectively than any single English … Continue reading →

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Chinese whispers

Posted on July 2, 2007 by Charles Lambert

As someone who’s made a (poor) living from academic translation in the past – I now make a poor living from editing my own dear language into UN-speak – I’m deeply impressed by good literary translators. I would never have … Continue reading →

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Endangered species and how we can help

Posted on June 19, 2007 by Charles Lambert

Tofa is a language spoken by nomads in the Eastern Sayan mountains of southern Siberia. To be precise, it’s spoken by exactly 25 nomads, all of them old and unlikely to live much longer. When they die, Tofa dies with … Continue reading →

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