Macron told Le Parisien newspaper: “Les non-vaccinés, j’ai très envie de les emmerder. Et donc on va continuer de le faire, jusqu’au bout.” Though perhaps more so outside of France, where it provoked a great deal of heated debate – and clearly caused a huge headache for translators and journalists.

After transcreation, is subtitling now stealing the headlines? Is this the new skill where humans can outshine AI? It certainly is a long way from 1:1 translation.

Just like in many countries around the globe nurses had heard a lot of clapping during the pandemic. But unlike everywhere else, feelings were strong that applause was not enough. The Swiss wanted real action, and change.

For a few years now linguists, teachers and parents have been voicing their concerns about the deterioration of (young) people’s writing skills. Many blame the social media, tweeting and chatting. Others maintain that these forms of written conversations are actually an outlet for creativity, providing young people with the opportunity to express themselves in writing when otherwise they wouldn’t.

That’s the heading of an article by the Guardian (Sunday 14 November). More precisely, it should say: “Where have all the Subtitlers gone?”

I guess all the signs were there to see. There was a contract, yes. But it clearly was not worth the paper it was written on. The deadlines were always totally unreasonable: 40.000-words in old-fashioned academic French on Michelangelo, in just one week.

Please click on the Link at the bottom to sign this very worthwhile petition demanding respect for translators – “Translators on the Cover”.

No, no, this heading is not by me. It’s the Bartleby article of the Economist, August 28th issue. I could not believe my eyes. What was that about? Surely this is offensive and not politically correct?

What appears to be a perfectly simple sentence in English turns out to be an insurmountable task and a huge headache for some of us translators.

Between 1979 and 1983 the BBC developed an ambitious initiative, called the BBC Computer Literacy Project. The people behind it had a grand vision. They were on a mission to help the general public, i.e. their viewers, to understand and make use of information technology.