Here, in ascending order, are the ten most popular* tweets about translation and language that I shared during 2018 on my @Smart_Translate Twitter account:
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- What happens when, as a foreigner, you have an imperfect French accent in France?
- What are some of the funny words that kids invent?
- Expected and unexpected twists: what will be the fate of the English language in the EU after Brexit?
- A mawkish misnomer: what is the etymology of the word ‘maudlin’?
- When you start typing into Google the question “Why does …?” for European countries, what are the results?
- Some words in book titles (e.g. brave, quick, sensibility) don’t always mean what you think they do …
- Sparrows, elephants, microbes or potatoes: pet names from some other countries don’t work quite so well in English.
- How American is your English? Find out with this quiz from Lynne Murphy (there’s also a “how British is your English” quiz, but that wasn’t quite so popular).
- How has the word “hundred” evolved in various Indo-European languages?
- And the ‘winning’ tweet is about forensic linguistics: How a murderer was brought to justice by his texting style.
* ‘most popular’ = most clicked on, according to Hootsuite.
Do you have a favourite article published in 2018 you’d like to share? Don’t hesitate to leave it in the comments below.
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