Author Archives: MMarks

Mass mailing

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Did anyone else get one of these?

Hi,
I really loved your blog!

My name is XXX and I am a partner at YYY. We are looking to solve the pains and frustrations of the translation industry through training, consultancy and our flagship TMS software solution.

Currently, we are looking to deliver amazing content and insights from thought leaders to our growing customer platform. And once we saw your amazing blog we couldn’t stop thinking about getting in touch with you to see if there are potential ways to collaborate.

It would be great to set up a short chat with you to explore synergies! Just let me know when it would be a good time for you if you are up for it.

Would love to hear back from you.
Take care,

I think it’s usually etiquette not to reply to emails, for instance job offers, which are not addressed personally to oneself, although actually I did reply to XXX (in the negative) here.

Weasels have their name blackened

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At Marder she wrote, Martin Crellin confirms what I originally suspected – the animal that shut down the Large Hadron Collider was not a weasel (Wiesel) but a beech or stone marten (Steinmarder).
I must admit that I began to research the story when I read the report, but the only German versions I read did (incorrectly) say Wiesel.
And this is not the pine marten found in the British Isles, but another one, well known for chewing through car cables but apparently not eating them. I remember on the drive back to Fürth from Vienna we once had to abandon the car at Regensburg after flames came out of the bonnet, later detected as marten damage.

ITI problems

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The ITI retirement issue story is set out at The ongoing ITI retirement/resignation saga on Lisa Simpson’s blog – many thanks to Lisa for hosting this matter.

The post contains a letter which ITI members including myself sent to the ITI Bulletin but which was not permitted to be published.

My problem with this is not that I want to retire yet myself, but the way others are being treated if they do, and the fact that the letter was not published. The retired category does not permit any paid translation work at all, in this age where people expect to work after retirement. As for those who leave, who include founding members (the ITI was founded 30 years ago), they are asked to return their certificates.

See also the post at Herbert Eppel’s blog.

Complete poems of Du Fu published in translation

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Steve Owen has translated the complete poems of Du Fu (1400-odd) and they are published together with the original Chinese, the Harvard Gazette reports: Translating Nine Pounds of Poetry.

What’s more, the complete work is available in an open access version free online in PDFs.

As Du Fu might have written if he’d been writing English:

Meng of the Granaries Section Comes on Foot to Give This Old Man Full Pots of New Ale and Bean Sauce

Chu shores gave passage to autumn clogs,
as my folding chair faced the evening fields.
Having strained the lees, you separated the liquid from the dregs,
the pot of bean sauce spills over as you carry it.
One will add fragrant flavor when I dine on coarse meal,
as for the other, when friends come we will get drunk.
How can one avoid ordinary things in managing life? —
please tell my rustic wife how to make these.