Monday listings

[jadesfire]

There may be actual content later. Or not. We'll see how we go.

In the meantime, some links that came up this morning and I thought you might like:

Asus and Intel invite people to design their ideal computer

Clive James has some news on the next Bond film (remember to bring your pinch of salt to this article ;))

Councils try to ban the use of Latin. I have mixed feelings about this one. Some phrases *are* confusing, although you can normally work out what they mean from context. But "e.g." and "etc" shouldn't be, I wouldn't have thought. It's trickier than it sounds from the headline, shockingly [/sarcasm]

Secrets of Great Characters according to 6 sci-fi authors. Great, great advice on building characters and worlds for them, applicable to all writing, not just science-fiction. Including contributions from Elizabeth Bear and Kim Stanley Robinson.

Comments

[unfeathered]

OMG, that Latin thing! How incredibly pathetic can you get! Even if the average reading age is 12, surely everyone uses 'etc.' and 'eg' by that age!

(P.S. Jack is intrigued by your cat wearing glasses - he says he's 'cool'!)

[lemon-tree-7.livejournal.com]

I can feel a rant coming on about banning the use of Latin!

Using a lot of 'easy' words is by no means automatically easier for a non-native English speaker to understand. Yes, vice versa could be confusing - prostitution poetry??? but it will be so obviously wrong in the context that people will know they need to find out what it means. However, if you replace it with and the other way round , non-native speakers with low level of English are likely simply to slide over the words without taking them in.

It's about making the writer's meaning clear to the target audience, and that takes more effort than just banning a few words and phrases, whether they are Latin, Greek, Turkish, French or Arabic.

* jumps up and down a few times, waving fists*

Hah! Rant over. That feels better now.
My former profession (teaching English to international students) comes back to haunt me from time to time!

[hellenebright.livejournal.com]

I did have a campaign years ago to stop the revenues department using legal latin (and legal English) to defaulters, because most defaulters barely have a grasp on English.

"When you appeared in court on the 29th of November, your case was adjourned. Unless you have continued to pay £23.50 per week, you must appear in court on 7th January."

Guess what - every single recipient of the letter containing that phrase rang up to find out if they should appear in court. "Unless you have continued to pay" is apparently a subjunctive tense. Woo hoo!

[unfeathered]

OMG, that Latin thing! How incredibly pathetic can you get! Even if the average reading age is 12, surely everyone uses 'etc.' and 'eg' by that age!

(P.S. Jack is intrigued by your cat wearing glasses - he says he's 'cool'!)

[lemon-tree-7.livejournal.com]

I can feel a rant coming on about banning the use of Latin!

Using a lot of 'easy' words is by no means automatically easier for a non-native English speaker to understand. Yes, vice versa could be confusing - prostitution poetry??? but it will be so obviously wrong in the context that people will know they need to find out what it means. However, if you replace it with and the other way round , non-native speakers with low level of English are likely simply to slide over the words without taking them in.

It's about making the writer's meaning clear to the target audience, and that takes more effort than just banning a few words and phrases, whether they are Latin, Greek, Turkish, French or Arabic.

* jumps up and down a few times, waving fists*

Hah! Rant over. That feels better now.
My former profession (teaching English to international students) comes back to haunt me from time to time!

[hellenebright.livejournal.com]

I did have a campaign years ago to stop the revenues department using legal latin (and legal English) to defaulters, because most defaulters barely have a grasp on English.

"When you appeared in court on the 29th of November, your case was adjourned. Unless you have continued to pay £23.50 per week, you must appear in court on 7th January."

Guess what - every single recipient of the letter containing that phrase rang up to find out if they should appear in court. "Unless you have continued to pay" is apparently a subjunctive tense. Woo hoo!