Around the web – December 2022

Here’s your monthly round-up of news, articles, and blog posts about translation and language for December 2022.

• Two articles on the ATA website: Disclosing what we personally charge as translators is extremely important in terms of raising general rates within the profession, and Are bilingual review files a productivity aid or a waste of time?

We need to talk about… money!

• Historically, Jewish life in Ukraine has always taken place in Russian, but now a race to translate Jewish texts into Ukrainian is underway
• The decline of the Cyrillic alphabet: free from Russian dictates over language usage and education, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan prepare to embrace Latin lettering

Plaque to Orbeliani Baths of Tbilisi in Georgia with a quote from Pushkin in Georgian and in Russian

• Trooper, trucker, sailor, fishwife: What we swear like when we swear like a something
• How Hong Kong’s weird and wonderful place names came to be 
• Imagine how much our discourse could be expanded with terms like ‘adullamite’, ‘roorback’ or ‘flapdoodler’: why forgotten words need rescuing from obscurity

“To get the bull down,” is to complete a last-minute rush of work ahead of the Christmas break. Fail to do that and you might end up a yuleshard, someone who leaves errands unfinished on Christmas Eve.’

• Can your accent hold you back? How accents shape lives in the UK
• Do you ‘go west’ or ‘go south’? Depends on whether you’re a Brit or an American
• The unexpectedly delightful origins of 15 common words

The etymological origins of the word ‘daisy’ are truly delightful.

• Duolingo has launched a ‘Museum of Wonky English’ (MOWE) in Japan, the first institution to shed light on the art of mistranslations

The Museum of Wonky English (MOWE) is the first institution in Japan dedicated to the art of mistranslations

Further reading on the blog:

• Around the web – November 2022
• Around the web – September and October 2022