In preparation for my upcoming Paris trip.

Picked up a loose copy lying around the office. Writing humorous fantasy must look easy, but this book shows why it isn’t. A sub-Pratchett fantasy, with more gore and remarkably stupid-yet unfunny-jokes.

Actually, I have the 6th edition, picked up at the Tate Modern bookstore.

I am reminded of this book by an interview with Jurga Zilinskiene I heard on the CBC’s As It Happens—which I can’t link to because the ninnyhammers who run their website haven’t updated their archive page in a week. But here’s the BBC News version:

“Congo word “most untranslatable”
By Oliver Conway
BBC News

The world’s most difficult word to translate has been identified as ilunga from the Tshiluba language spoken in south-eastern DR Congo.

It came top of a list drawn up in consultation with 1,000 linguists.

Ilunga means “a person who is ready to forgive any abuse for the first time, to tolerate it a second time, but never a third time”.

It seems straightforward enough, but the 1,000 language experts identified it as the hardest word to translate.

In second place was shlimazl, which is Yiddish for “a chronically unlucky person”.

Third was naa, used in the Kansai area of Japan to emphasise statements or agree with someone.

Although the definitions seem fairly precise, the problem is trying to convey the local references associated with such words, says Jurga Zilinskiene, head of Today Translations, which carried out the survey.

“Probably you can have a look at the dictionary and… find the meaning,” she said. “But most importantly it’s about cultural experiences and… cultural emphasis on words.”

The speed at which simultaneous interpreters work only adds to the difficulty of trying to explain words with complex meanings.

And technical jargon, often found in politics, business or sport, has difficulties of its own.

Miss Zilinskiene’s own bete noir is “googly”, a cricketing term for “an off-breaking ball disguised by the bowler with an apparent leg-break action”.

But then many people find cricket incomprehensible anyway. Naa.

Maybe it’s me, but-at risk of sounding Canadian-I suspect you could substitute “eh?” for “naa”, as in

But then many people find cricket incomprehensible anyway, eh?

A period mystery, in which amateur detective William Shakespeare(!) and friend must solve a murder. Interesting concept, indifferently executed.

A period mystery, in which amateur detective William Shakespeare(!) and friend must solve a murder.

Journalism memoir disguised as a cat story. Reminds me of my own perpatetic cat.

Romantic Brit novel, whose gimmick is that its point of view switches back and forth between the two protaganists. Otherwise, the story is so predictable that I’ll bet Richard (Four Weddings and a Funeral) Curtis has optioned the book and written the script.

Picked up in London. An amusing little book on proper punctuation (though the author is clearly unsound on the issue of the serial comma).

In preparation for my China trip.