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Politics and the English Language

Niall O'Donnell 14 Comments

If the ban were announced with a one week (sic) notice, the “bad” would rush into our country during that week. A lot of bad “dudes” out there! – Donald Trump, 30/01/17

First of all, it’s not a travel ban – Sean Spicer, 31/01/17

Political language — and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists — is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind – George Orwell, 1946

When is a ban not a ban? Continue reading →

Commonly-Misspelled Words

Niall O'Donnell 22 Comments

Spelling is hard. We’re usually gradually eased into it. We pick up words first by hearing them, and then at home (hopefully) and at school we’re exposed to written words, usually pretty simple ones that look as you might imagine from hearing them. Dog, cat, hat etc. Then the more we read, the more we get used to words with less phonetic spellings. That’s how you spell laugh? And though? Ok, if that’s the way it is. Sometimes, we’ll come across words we’ve heard, but whose spelling we don’t recognise. Usually at some point we’ll figure out through context that this strange-looking word is actually a common one we’re familiar with, but that can take a long time in some cases.

But despite all that, there are some words, which either through their length and complexity, or sheer counter-intuitiveness, prove quite difficult to spell. Here are some of the most-commonly misspelled words: Continue reading →

Ill-Starred

Niall O'Donnell 7 Comments

The stars have always been important to us. When our first ancestors first noticed that those strange lights in the sky moved gradually over time, they tried to find explanations for this phenomenon. Perhaps these movements were linked to seasonal changes, and unpredictable, calamitous events. Perhaps they were gods, or great creatures like bears and crabs, manipulating events here on Earth. Continue reading →

Lost in Translation

Niall O'Donnell 21 Comments

While browsing through Netflix en français the other day, I saw the thumbnail for the BBC drama Call the Midwife. I was about to continue browsing when I noticed the French title:

SOS sages-femmes.

This struck me a  bit odd. Sure, une sage-femme is the French word for midwife (and quite a cool word too, literally meaning wise woman), but the SOS? In a period drama mixing light soap opera and social-realist representations of the difficulties of working-class East-End London life in the 1950s, it seems out of place. It’s too flippant, making me think of a children’s programme like Paw Patrol. Except with midwives on bicycles instead of puppies, and back-alley abortionists instead of whatever the puppies have to deal with (I’ve never seen Paw Patrol). So while in a literal sense, the title gets the content of the programme across, it doesn’t convey a sense of its tone at all. I appreciate that retitling TV shows and movies from English can be difficult, with titles often being clever plays on words that can’t easily be translated. But in this case, the title is simple and without subtext, so a direct translation (Appelez La Sage-Femme, which was the French title for the book the programme’s based on) would have worked fine. But clearly someone felt it needed to be jazzed up a bit, though I don’t know why they didn’t go all-in and add an exclamation mark at the end.

There are two general approaches to translating a title: Continue reading →

“Boy, those Germans have a word for everything!”

Niall O'Donnell 25 Comments

I’ve often written about how modern English owes so much to old Germanic languages. These connections aren’t always evident though. Words evolve over time and drift away from their origins. Plus, a lot of what English gained from these languages and proto-languages is not easy to see on the surface. Syntax, grammar, and compound-noun formation are not as easy to recognise as individual words. Which is why Latin-based languages can seem superficially more similar to English, with many words sharing similar etymologies to English ones (though the English ones tend to be more formal).

The result of this is that there don’t appear to be too many words shared between modern German and English. There are a few however, and in honour of English’s origins in Germanic languages, I’m going to look at the German words that we use in English: Continue reading →

Craft

Niall O'Donnell 6 Comments

via Daily Prompt: Craft

Craft is a word that has long been a noun and a verb. One worked on one’s craft, and a craftsman crafts various objects. In recent years though, it has become commonly used as an adjective, particularly to refer to craft beer. Whatever your feelings about craft beer (either pretentious, over-priced, bitter stuff, or refreshing, lovingly-crafted independent alternative to the big breweries’ fare), it’s hard to deny that it’s become quite popular. And now it’s quite common to find many other craft food and drinks.

Why have craft food and drinks taken off so? Continue reading →

A Little Schooling

Niall O'Donnell 9 Comments

What school did you go to?

This always seemed like a straightforward question to me, and that’s still mostly true. After asking, Do you mean primary or secondary school? if it wasn’t not clear from the context, I’d then answer. But as I watched more television as a child, my certainty of the meaning of the word school wavered somewhat. Here’s my previously-secure conception of the stages of education: Continue reading →