Category: words

First of all, the main theme of these reviews is not the novel itself, but Jane Eyre. Then things keep on getting worse, and more hilarious: “While everyone stands around choking down a ball of moldy, stinky cheese acting upscale and phony, I’ll be eating my Velveeta and not forcing myself to like something that is overrated.” – LitHub

Of course, translating isn’t only the business of people who get paid to do it. Around 300 languages are used daily in London, and New York may be home to as many as 800, according to the Endangered Language Alliance. Yet any talk of translating literature—rather than shopping lists or doctors’ orders—is oddly esoteric. – Prospect

So Wikipedia cites a source for a piece of information. The source cites Wikipedia. And around and around it goes. Trying to find out the original sourcing can be a frustratingly circular exercise. – Slate

Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden’s master plan involves a makeover of the main building, including its beloved Great Hall and Main Reading Room, to add exhibition space. But some staffers and observers worry that the extra activity and foot traffic will change the nature of the place — as the leader of the staff union local put it, “All of us are interested in having people in the library. We don’t want to see it turned into an events center just because it’s beautiful.” – The Washington Post

“According to research commissioned by the Man Booker International (MBI) prize from Nielsen Book, overall sales of translated fiction in the UK were up last year by 5.5%, with more than 2.6m books sold, worth £20.7m – the highest level since Nielsen began to track sales in 2001.” – The Guardian

As one publisher put it, “Translated literature has found recent mainstream success partly because books coverage, like Congress, is catching up to the changing culture of America.” Yet for two years running, the number of translations published here has fallen. – Publishers Weekly

“[This study reveals] how racism spans across the entire Seuss collection, while debunking myths about how books like Horton Hears a Who! and The Sneetches can be used to promote tolerance, anti-bias, or anti-racism,” Katie Ishizuka and Ramón Stephens write in their February 2019 report, “The Cat is Out of the Bag: Orientalism, AntiBlackness, and White Supremacy in Dr. Seuss’ s Children’s Books,” as part of St. Catherine University’s Research on Diversity in Youth Literature. – People

At least they agree on something. “Female researchers, authors and firefighters in France could soon be known as chercheuses, autrices and sapeuses-pompières after the conservative Académie Française abandoned years of opposition to the feminisation of job titles.” – The Guardian

“The elite club of 40 ‘immortals,’ as the members are known, that serves as the official guardian of the French language does not admit just anybody.” Indeed, these days they don’t admit anybody at all: there are three vacancies, and the membership cannot agree on candidates to fill them. As one critic puts it, “The academy is a boat adrift in a dry sea.” – The New York Times