Gender in language

  • Posted by Stephen Whiteley
  • On 27/07/2019
  • Chinese, English, Linguistics, Spanish, words
Gender in language – A mysterious thing For most native English speakers, gender in language is a mysterious thing. Why is an inanimate object like a chair feminine in Italian but masculine in Russian?   Examples of gender in languages The first thing to note is that the gender isn’t so much a property of […]
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Translating marketing collateral

  • Posted by Stephen Whiteley
  • On 05/04/2015
  • Business translation, corporate translation, cost saving, desktop publishing, process, Quality, words
For documentation which is aimed at capturing people’s attention and imagination, a slightly less literal approach to translation is often appropriate: the key purpose of the translation of marketing collateral, for instance, is to render the original in a register which is appropriate to the market to which it is destined. Remember, though, that if […]
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Basque words in English

  • Posted by Stephen Whiteley
  • On 31/12/2013
  • Basque, etymology, Linguistics, Shakespeare, Spanish, Tolkien, words
Basque is a fascinating language. Despite speculations that it may, somehow, be related to language groups from Eastern Europe, it is essentially that rarest of linguistic phenomena, a language that emerged independently of its neighbours, and preserved its individuality throughout the course of modern history (in the technical jargon: a ‘language isolate’). It is generally […]
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Hummingbirds and butterflies

  • Posted by Stephen Whiteley
  • On 15/10/2013
  • colibri, le mot juste, Linguistics, words
I came across the word picaflor in Javier Marias’ novel Corazón tan blanco. A rather lovely word which is apparently on the brink of extinction, un picaflor can refer to one of two things. The principal meaning is hummingbird, although this animal would today be more commonly referred to in Spanish as un colibrí, or […]
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Express Etymology

  • Posted by Stephen Whiteley
  • On 12/09/2013
  • etymology, words
In modern English, express is a verb meaning – broadly – to convey information, generally of a more personal nature, as well as an adjective meaning very fast. From the verb, we have formulas such as ‘expression of regret’, ‘self-expression’, ‘expressing milk’, whilst we get ‘express train’ and ‘express delivery’ from the adjective. But the […]
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