He talks about how languages, and English in particular, constantly innovates:

“We shouldn’t be afraid of innovation in the English language… Our language is being totally enriched by flavours from all kinds of discourse.”

But also how the nuances of word choice are so crucial to conveying the sense behind the phrasing.

Great listening if you have 5 minutes to spare…

I’ve pointed out before how translating British English across the Atlantic isn’t always straightforward but I have to say this summary is “not bad at all”…





• In addition to multilingual translation, WorldAccent provides British English translation including localisation from American English.

(Click for professional American to British translator)

Even when two people apparently speak the same language, regional variations or a lack of local knowledge can lead to total misunderstanding.

The BBC recently reported that 1990s rap star Vanilla Ice will be appearing in a pantomime version of Peter Pan in Chatham on the north Kent coast.

In an age of globalisation, this news spread rapidly around the internet, especially in the United States. But you might expect that the US news reporters could have double checked what a pantomime in the UK actually involves.

For the benefit of non-British readers, pantomime is a raucous musical comedy, usually of traditional children’s stories, usually performed in the Christmas season. As wikipedia describes pantomime:

“a popular form of theatre, incorporating song, dance, buffoonery, slapstick, cross-dressing, in-jokes, topical references, audience participation, and mild sexual innuendo.”

The audience is encouraged to join in, with cries such as “He’s behind you” or “Oh yes, it is!”. The lead roles in these slices of Christmas slapstick are often taken by household names who have been famous in other fields such as TV, singing or even boxing. For example Anthea Turner, David Hasselhoff, Leslie Grantham, Jane Asher and Nigel Havers have all taken a turn in this popular brand of theatre entertainment.

Unfortunately for transatlantic commentators, pantomime of this type is not common in the US – leading them to assume that Vanilla Ice will be performing a silent mime version of Peter Pan:

“As a pantomime, Ice can only use his bodily and facial contortions and moves in order to act out the role.”

“The musician has signed on to play a silent version of Captain Hook in a performance of ‘Peter Pan’ at the Kent Central Theatre in England.”

“Learning the art of being a mime is the only logical move after effectively slaughtering the rap game and reality television… If you’re not excited to see Vanilla Ice communicate the role of Captain Hook using only facial expressions and hand movements than you obviously don’t have good taste in theater.”

“Vanilla Ice is taking one old adage to heart: silence is golden!”

“Playing a mime villain definitely trumps Ice on Dancing On Ice”

While pantomime itself is often seen as a bit laughable, here at the office we can’t help finding the mental image created by this total misunderstanding even funnier… “Oh yes, it is!”





• In addition to multilingual translation, WorldAccent provides document localisations into American English, British English, etc.

OK is a strange and unique word or expression and its meaning and origin are contested. We usually use it to to mean that something is agreed or accepted. It can also conclude a conversation to indicate the discussion is finished such as “OK, Bye”, especially on the phone. It could be used in less positive ways, something can be OK as in not too bad but not brilliant either.

It is mostly considered to have originated in American English in the nineteenth century as a version of “all correct”, but there are other possibilities such as from the term okeh in the Native American Choctaw language or waw-key from Wolof and Bantu. It may also come from the Greek Ola Kala “All Good”.

We don’t know where in the world it came from, but has it taken over the world?

It has equivalents in many languages, with subtle variations of usage and meaning. It can be considered in-polite at times in India. Sometimes such as in Cantonese it will be used as part of a smattering of English terms, but usually it has its own version in the language.

While it is not used much in print, we use OK in everyday speech all the time. We will encounter OK frequently when engaging with technology. We click on the word OK often while negotiating our way round the internet or using software on computers. I sometimes even think of the action of clicking on the dialog button as “Ok-ing that” but maybe that is just me!

Is that OK?

Although we tend to talk about English as if it is something monolithic, there are numerous Englishes. Tune into the conversations happening around you in a café or on the Tube, and you’ll make out a mosaic of variants.

So claims an interesting article entitled “Language can’t stay still – just listen to London” in London’s Evening Standard earlier this week. The author Henry Hitchings has just writen a book on “proper English” and relays a story which will sound familiar to many Londoners:

One reason for this is the large number of other languages spoken by Londoners – at least 300. Among the more prominent of these are Punjabi, Bengali, Urdu and Gujarati, as well as Caribbean creole, Cantonese, Polish, Arabic, Tagalog and Greek. On a recent hour-long bus journey, I heard Russian, Portuguese, Turkish and Yoruba. As passengers flitted between native and adopted languages, it was clear these had become intertwined.

As the article points out, English has always adapted and absorbed other languages producing a rich and varied vocabulary. There are perhaps fewer attempts to regulate English useage than, say, French usage. The Oxford English Dictionary might be ultimate arbiter in a game of Scrabble, but it tends to reflect widespread rather than desired or “pure” usage. There is no English language body which attempts to roll back “invaders” once they have become widespread.

English has prospered through assimilating terms from other languages, and engagement – in London and beyond – with speakers of foreign languages has enabled this, while also propagating hybrids such as Hinglish (a blend of Hindi and English).

This is all very well but where does this leave me professionally? My company expends a lot of time and effort trying to get language right: not just “sort of understandable” but absolutely correct. If you like, the “letter of the law” is absolute in our working lives, as we constantly strive for correct grammar and perfect punctuation. Does this run counter to the belief that language develops, is a living entity? Well, not entirely. Hitchings contends:

A descriptive approach to language change does not eclipse the cogent arguments for teaching in schools a standard form of written English. But the spoken language will always be elastic. It is the spoken language that is the great driver of change, and in London scarcely a day goes by without our noticing some addition or adjustment. This can be disconcerting, but English draws strength from being mobile and protean.

Hitching’s book, The Language Wars: A History of Proper English expands on this argument historically. As one reviewer puts it “[Hitchens] gleefully explains, over 28 chapters, organised pretty much chronologically while covering areas such as spelling, punctuation, pronunciation, obscenity and slang, that all attempts to prescribe ‘correct’ usage have always been outrun by ceaseless change in the language itself.”

I like to think of this as accepting that, while we always try to get language right, we also accept that what is “right” can – and must – evolve.

As a Scot myself, growing up in Ayrshire, I had become aware that there was lots of common language there that completely bamboozled English friends. But I hadn’t realised there was such a variation of vocabulary within Scotland itself. After all it is a very small nation which has two distinct languages – English and Gaelic. And while I had occasionally found some accents a bit difficult to get, I had never really had any trouble with understanding vocabulary.

Later in life when I got involved in the business of translation I began to see just how much these regional variations could matter. Spanish is spoken is Spain itself but also throughout a large part of South America. But that doesn’t mean that what makes sense in Madrid will be equally understood in Buenos Aires. Likewise with Portuguese. A Brazilian friend, who always thought he spoke perfect Portuguese, found himself struggling to be understood on holiday in the Algarve.

But I digress. Back to my predicament when meeting my landlady in the north east of Scotland. It turns out – as I came to realise during my stay there – that what I should have replied is:

“Nae sae bad quinie, fit like yasel?”

Or in plain English she asked me “How are you sir” and I should have replied “Not bad, how are you madam?”

The study by the respected Dante Alighieri Society [website in Italian] shows that many feel it has gone too far. In fact, the authors call on Italians to reject what they dub “Anglitalianco”. How successful they will be remains to be seen, when even those stalwart defenders of their language, the French, have come to accept borrow words such as “le shopping”.

But the question that occurs to me is: how far should we “defend” a language? Language is a living thing, it grows and borrows quite naturally. English itself is littered with words borrowed from other languages and continues to adopt them. So is insisting on “fine settimana” instead of weekend resisting linguistic imperialism or being a stick in the mud? I don’t know the answer, but as so often with language, it’s a fascinating debate.

It seems Tesco have been having problems with the signs at their express checkouts which are deigned for customers with a small amount of shopping. They have long raised hackles among the grammatically pedantic with the sign’s wording of “10 items or less”. Some argued the signs should read “10 items or fewer” which, while it might be technically correct, sounds clumsy.

Tesco asked various English experts which was right but got contradictory advice. In the end they consulted the Plain English campaign who suggested “up to 10 items” – and this is what Tesco will be using in future.

Sadly, as many people have pointed out, this introduces a new confusion as to whether exactly 10 items is acceptable or not!

If experts in English grammar cannot agree on the wording for something so simple as a sign, it is little wonder matters get even more complicated when another language is involved. Translators often find clients changing their translation to something they feel happier with – regardless of whether the original translation was perfectly understandable or not.

The important point is to negotiate a wording that is clear and that both the author and reader take the same meaning from. The only way to do that is see translation and copywriting as a two way process, where communication is the key to refining a final wording.