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Illustration of 7 diverse medical professionals standing in a V-formation on a grey background.

Emergency Linguistics: The Translation of Public Health Information in Emergency Situations

August 4, 2020 | Filed under: Barbara McClintock

Every act of communication is an act of translation. Gregory Rabassa, translator of Spanish and Portuguese fiction The translation of public health information is critical in emergency situations, particularly in a country like Canada that welcomes thousands of immigrants every year whose mother tongue is not English or French. A …

picture taken in Phuket, Thailand of the Big Buddha

Lessons from the Big Buddha

August 6, 2019 | Filed under: Marianne Grier

A recent family adventure took me to Phuket’s Big Buddha. As the name suggests, this marvel is a giant Buddha stretching 45 metres into the sky, overlooking the Andaman Sea. One of the top tourist sites on the island, the Buddha sits peacefully on his mountaintop, his white Burmese jade marble …

Language Resources for Non-Native English Speakers

May 7, 2019 | Filed under: Aaron Dalton

I teach plain language workshops, and I was recently approached by a non-native English speaker. His language skills were excellent. He said he learned English mostly through standardized exams, and he felt there was a gap between the mode of English he was taught and the plain language approach I …

Yeet Citationality: Yippie-ki-yay!

January 15, 2019 | Filed under: James Harbeck

The voting is in, and the American Dialect Society’s Slang Word of the Year is… yeet. Yeet is not so well known to oldsters, but it is in vogue among the youth. Its popularity demonstrates a central fact of how vocabulary spreads. It also leads us to Bugs Bunny, Clark …

Pink, Blue and the Singular “They”

October 16, 2018 | Filed under: Marianne Grier

I was a late adopter of the singular “they,” once thinking its usage was down to laziness or ignorance. I’ve recently changed my tune. The singular “they” helps streamline sentences, is considerate of those who don’t identify with a gender, and can help avoid the gender-charged language that can be …

Does Verbing Impact the Language?

February 20, 2018 | Filed under: James Harbeck

A favourite crank for language cranks to crank is the demon of verbing. It wrecks our language, they protest! They target such usages as impacted and referenced in business-speak and medalled in broadcasting. While liberal-minded linguists may see these words as just more of the odd flowers that bloom in …

Eggplants and Aubergines

January 17, 2017 | Filed under: Marianne Grier

Before leaving Canada, I had a solid grasp on Canadian English. I knew there were differences between British and American English, and my language differed from both of these. Beyond that, I didn’t give Canadian English much thought. After finishing my BA, I ventured to Germany to teach in sleepy …

Wasted Words: Surviving Overkill

August 2, 2016 | Filed under: Wilf Popoff

In 1956 SC Johnson (formerly Johnson Wax) developed Raid, an apparently effective insecticide that became a marketing miracle. But most of the credit for the boom belongs to Foote, Cone & Belding (aka FCB), a global advertising agency that created the legendary slogan, Raid Kills Bugs Dead. This whimsically ironic tagline …

More Honoured in the Breach or the Observance?

March 1, 2016 | Filed under: James Harbeck

It is tempting to say that getting classical quotations right is more honoured in the breach than the observance. But if we did, we’d be guilty too. In the original, Hamlet is telling Horatio about the tradition of drinking sprees in the Danish court; he says it makes Danes look …

What’s That There, Then? More Cape Breton English

June 16, 2015 | Filed under: Frances Peck

We take a lot for granted when we’re kids. Maybe most things. Growing up in Cape Breton in the 1970s and 1980s, enforced post-structuralist studies and a career of editorial skepticism still years away, I barely gave terminology a thought. Things had names. You might not always understand them (like …

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