Wednesday 28 March 2007

The difficulties of English

Writing a book leads to unexpected delights and new connections. When a Romanian lady (who lives in Japan) read my book she contacted me and said that she would like to translate it into Romanian. Neither of us quite know what the point of this is going to be yet, but it sounded like a fun project. I suppose that, because
do a lot of work in Romania, I hoped that the book may have a success there that they could help them. Anyway, all that is beside the point. We are trying to get my book turned into Romanian.
Mihaela is doing brilliantly at what must be a really hard task, but she recently sent me a a list of words she was stuck on. It is a good example of the vagaries of English, but also the powerful, descriptive nuances of so many of our words. Here is the list, jam-packed with fabulous words!

pull it off, tarmac, to run the gauntlet, clarion, chisel-jawed, take stock of, scrum, snogger, snog, quiff, brogues, wonky, gawpers, dump, I could not stick it out, bucking, jack it all in, beeping, I would be having a ball, hemmed, dodgy, con, mojo, prosy, in treacle, swanky, cringing at, bail out, bobbed, clime, swathe, overwhelmed, uncluttered, clouting, think only this of me, to have a crack, to take a bearing on, blancmange, grotty, swilling, scrummaging, wangle, sod it, lee, Greensleeves, doing bugger all, taut, fu**ed up!, woopee cushion, mead, glugging, fledgling, tout, swill, excarpment, psyched himself up, gauntlet, jarred, Foofighters, all worked up, smoke joints, ganja, wiggling, red-hot cattle prod, joystick, the King's Road, been tipped off, shambolic, red herring, boaters, faze, succour, do over, fast-tracking, panel beater , wellington boots, pandemonium, spuming, takeaway, squirming, feistiness.

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