Around the web – June 2019

I was delighted this month to finally be able to start working with a sit-stand desk. Do you have one? So here, sent while I’m standing at my desk, is your June round-up of the month’s most popular stories about translation, interpreting, and language.

• In this video-gone-viral made for Wired, Professor Barry Olsen explains what it’s really like to be a professional interpreter. At the time of writing it’s had 1.8 million views!

screenshot from the video ‘Interpreter Breaks Down How Real-Time Translation Works’

• On 4th June a spontaneous campaign started on Twitter in support of translators affected by the non-payment of the Spanish publishing house Malpaso Ediciones.
• Colleague Caroline Alberoni interviewed US-born, Mexico City-based literary translator and poet Robin Myers.
• Not only did 25th June mark the 116th anniversary of George Orwell’s birth, but 8th June was the 70th anniversary of the publication of “1984”. What influence did Orwell have on the English language?

Orwell and the English Language

• Colleagues Claire Cox and Simon Berrill wrote blog posts about the recent ITI conference in Sheffield: Spotlight on Sheffield and A welcome message.
• Simon also blogged about the RevClub ‘roadshow’ here.
• This Guardian article is a fascinating look about what it’s like to be the New Zealand PM’s sign language interpreter.

Alan Wendt poses after a post-cabinet press conference at Parliament in Wellington, New Zealand. (Photograph: Hagen Hopkins)

• In the US, the Best Translated Book Award 2019 winners were announced at the beginning of the month.
• Netflix’s miniseries “When They See Us” has shown how black slang was criminalised for The Central Park 5. It still is today.
• How to cut back on unnecessary exclamation marks in your writing.
• Finally, France’s Academie Française released guidelines on how to use certain insults properly

Members of the Academie Francaise gather at the library before an induction ceremony at the Academie Francaise in Paris on December 15, 2016. (Photo by PATRICK KOVARIK / AFP)

On a personal note, as well as translating I also do some travel writing, and this month saw the publication of the new “Insight Guide to Mauritius, Reunion and Seychelles“. This is the 3rd edition, and the 2nd edition on which I’ve worked writing and updating the “Reunion” part.

Further reading:

• Around the web – April 2019
• Around the web – May 2019
• A British member of the Académie Française
• Is our job killing us?