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The mining industry is a complex global sector experiencing rapid innovation, from drone-based topographical surveys, advancements in AI and ‘smart mines’ to breakthroughs in spectroscopic scanning robots. Bridging language and culture barriers is key for businesses looking to operate effectively in this evolving marketplace, in order to keep pace with…

In 1869 Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev published his periodic table in which elements are ordered by virtue of their atomic structure. To mark the 150th anniversary of this seminal work, the UN has declared 2019 the “international year of the periodic table”, and this week’s blog takes a look at…

I’ve been meaning to write about the translation genius behind the Astérix books for a while. Anthea Bell died in October last year aged 82, so this seems a fitting moment to revisit her extraordinary body of work, for which she was awarded an OBE for services to literature and…

I spend much of my day grappling with German texts, wrestling complex sentences into passable English and cursing the German penchant for burying the verb several miles off from its companion. So when I sit down for supper with the family, it can be frustrating to find that I need…

“Freelance translator”: it’s hardly a thrilling job description. Imagine how much more exciting it would be to have “Knight adventurer” printed on your business cards. And a tweet by Susie Dent suggests that this is precisely the origin of the now mundanely used freelancer: “a knight-adventurer who used his lance…

Somerset House in London is hosting a cultural celebration of the Peanuts comic strip in its “Good Grief, Charlie Brown!” exhibition. It is well worth a visit and there is plenty for the linguist to enjoy. Schulz helped immortalise words such as “Augh”, “good grief, “rats” and “blockhead”. He was…

In early November 2018, CNN launched another of its banana series of commercials. It features a banana in a number of situations where an apple would be expected, such as on a medical advice notice now proclaiming ‘A banana a day keeps the doctor away’ or a banana falling on…

Language evolves to reflect the changing world and every so often I like to pop along to the Oxford English Dictionary updates website to have a browse through the latest dictionary entries. The OED has been capturing the history of the English language for over 100 years. The dictionary is…

Have you discovered the Revisionist History podcast by Malcolm Gladwell yet? It’s a series in which he looks back at things in history which have been “overlooked or misunderstood”. Most of the episodes are completely independent, so you can dive in wherever you fancy in the three series released so…