1. The Guardian Books Blog invited readers to translate. See comments. A comment by smpugh:

Don’t let’s forget Ogden Nash, btw, who was once told by a lady at some event that she liked one of his books but preferred it in the French translation. “Yes”, he murmured, “my work does tend to lose something in the original”.

The entry links to Fitzgerald’s Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. I don’t suppose that is a close translation, but I did grow up with it as my mother was always quoting it, and I can picture the leather cover of the copy we had. It looks as if it was the first version.

Here with a Loaf of Bread beneath the Bough,
A Flask of Wine, a Loaf of Bread,–and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness–
And Wilderness is Paradise enow!

(via Unprofessional Translation)

2. A map of the languages of Europe, on Wikimedia Commons (you need to see the large version). This was tweeted by Sarah Dillon from elsewhere, and was discussed on Siberian Light.

One amazing thing about this map is how no English is spoken in the whole of Ireland, in most of Wales, and in large parts of Scotland.

3. You can read the whole of the Tamara Drewe comic by Posy Simmonds, which was published in the Guardian, starting here. One of the narrators is ‘Dr. Glen Larson, translator (MFA, University of Arkansas, PhD, Columbia, currently Visiting Professor at London Medial University)
(via Baroque in Hackney)

4. Nevada Legislator Proposes Bill on How to Pronounce ‘Nevada’

Whereas there are two common pronunciations of the name of our great state:

(1) the provincial pronunciation utilized by approximately two-million Nevadans, using a flat A-sound — a sound not unlike the bleating of a sheep, and;

(2) the cosmopolitan or Spanish pronunciation used by the other seven-billion inhabitants
of our planet, using a soft “A” intonation—not unlike a sigh of contentment, and . . .

Whereas it is becoming a continuous, prodigious, and daunting task for the two million colloquial-speaking inhabitants to interrupt and correct the other seven-billion inhabitants of the Planet who utilize the Spanish/cosmopolitan pronunciation . . .

Therefore; be it resolved, that henceforth, there will be two acceptable pronunciations for the name of our great state:

(1) the preferred pronunciation will be the colloquial pronunciation, and;

(2) the less-preferred pronunciation will be the charitably-tolerated
Spanish/cosmopolitan pronunciation.