15 June 2013

Make it sparkle

Reading a review of Mark Miodownik's book Stuff Matters: The Strange Stories of the Marvellous Materials that Shape Our Man-Made World by Clive Cookson, I was struck by the sentence: "This sounds dull but Miodownik writes well enough to make even concrete sparkle."

When a science writer can make a subject like concrete 'sparkle', he or she has really achieved something. Similarly, when a translator can make a customer's text on anything potentially dull 'sparkle' or 'sing' (I think I prefer 'sing'), then he or she has really achieved something. 

ChatGPT, a drafting aid for translation by emulation

On 17 October 2011, I published the first of two posts summarising my general approach to the type of translation/adaptation services I was ...