Most popular tweets of 2017

Here, in ascending order, are the ten most popular* tweets about translation and language that I shared during 2017 on my @Smart_Translate Twitter account:

• Humour: 23 subtle signs you’ll never quite master French.
• More humour: How to swear like a Swede.
• Etymology: What in the Word?! Mining the roots of ‘cobalt’
• Three little letters, 645 meanings: did you know that The Most Complicated Word in English is Only Three Letters Long?
• A 2011 post about telephony on Separated By A common Language that I recently re-shared was the sixth most popular tweet.
• Love your translator! says colleague Kim Sanderson.
• Why is English the “language of science” when brilliant scientists come from all corners of the globe? And does it matter?
• As freelancers, how can we track non-billable time?
• A map of emigration in Europe: Destination countries and percentages of emigrants.
• And the ‘winning’ tweet is about literary translation: Translating Boryana Neykova’s “Time to Pack” by Irina Ivanova on Words Without Borders

* ‘most popular’ = most clicked on, according to Hootsuite.

Do you have a favourite article published in 2017 you’d like to share? Don’t hesitate to leave it in the comments below.

Related articles:

• Most Popular Tweets of 2016
• Most Popular Tweets of 2015
• Most Popular Tweets of 2014
• Most Popular Tweets of 2013

Around the web – December 2017

Every year end brings its attempts at summing up the past 12 months in a single word or two. In terms of frequency, a quick check of my Twitter account tells me – unsurprisingly – that language and translation were my most used words in 2017! Here is your round-up of popular news stories for December on those very subjects.

• How do you spot a sub-par translator? It can be harder than you think says Tess Whitty
• The largest internet-based retailer in the world recently introduced Amazon Translate: “Real-time language translation”.
• Translators as Bridge Builders: Lawrence Schimel sent A Dispatch from the Guadalajara International Book Fair

The Guadalajara International Book Fair. (Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons).

• Staying with literary translation, here is an interview with Allison M. Charette, whose translation of Beyond the Rice Fields by Naivo became the first Malagasy novel to ever be published in English.
• How is an Iraqi translation project helping to rebuild science in the Arab world?

Aristotle teaching astronomy. © Topkapi Palace Museum, Istanbul

• Charles Dickens wrote about the plight of impoverished & destitute members of UK society. So how come ‘Dickensian‘ is a synonym for rosy-cheeked, full-stomached, fattened-goose, hearty merry “God bless us every one” Christmas?
• Check out this holiday season list from Words Without Borders of some Reading in Translation.

A Holiday Gift Guide for Reading in Translation

• Colleague Claire Cox wrote an interesting account of the recent “Translating Harry Potter” event at the British Library in London.
• Cobalt has been used for colouring since antiquity. What are the roots of the word?

What in the Word?! Mining the roots of ‘cobalt’

• Here are some high-tech words with low-tech histories from Dictionary.com, as well as a look at some overworked buzzwords in business.

Happy New Year 2018!

Further reading:

• Around the web – November 2017
• Around the web – October 2017
• Around the web – September 2017