Around the web – July & August 2022 | A Smart Translator's Reunion

Been away over the summer? Here’s your round-up of news, articles, and blog posts about language and translation for July and August.

“Even experienced full-time literary translators can hardly make a living from literary translation” is one of the (depressing) results to emerge from a European Council of Literary Translators‘ Associations’ survey on the working conditions of literary translators in Europe
A high price to pay: the recent attack on Salman Rushdie served as a reminder of how some of the translators who worked on ‘The Satanic Verses’ have been physically targeted – and even murdered – in the past
A former rapper is now debunking racist myths about Creole languages, including the myth that Creoles are just simplified languages
What is linguistic discrimination? When it comes to language, who decides what’s correct?

What is “good” or “right” when it comes to language?

The EU border agency Frontex has been accused of exploiting staff by using a contractor who it is claimed offers interpreters an effective wage of less than €2.50 an hour
How do our brains cope with speaking more than one language?

Mixing up the languages we speak can reveal surprising things about how our brains work.

In this video for Wired, linguists Nicole Holliday and Ben Zimmer explain why some slang has gone out of style while other terms have persevered
Staying on the subject of new language: “Coining words is like sex in that it’s necessary to our species” says a writer and editor in this article

Who made that word and why?
No matter how many words in a language, it seems that we always need just one more to explain ourselves.

Screenshot from ‘Horizon Worlds’, Meta’s new virtual reality game

Will naming heatwaves (i.e. the same system used for cyclones) change people’s perception and help save lives?
Here’s an interesting chat with the team responsible for the sensational, nearly no-holds-barred “Stranger Things 4” descriptive captions

Wet writhing and eldritch gurgling

On a fun final note, this “literature clock” instantly finds literary quotations based on the time of day (or night) you access the website

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