I’m pleased to see a parody online of the dreadful We’re not Afraid (of terrorists) site. It’s the i am fucking terrified site (some offensive language and not all very funny, though).

Via Boing Boing

Roy Stuart was Law Fellow at Hertford College, Oxford, from 1969 until his retirement in 2003 and died in June 2005 aged 68. There is a column by David Pannick in the Times Online law section (registration free) – I haven’t found an obituary.

In one of the untidiest rooms in England, Roy would lead his tutorial pupils towards an understanding of the principles of criminal law, contract and jurisprudence with a mixture of wit, empathy and intellectual rigour, stirred with a measure of cynicism.

When he made an interesting point, or more rarely when one of his pupils made what he considered to be a valuable contribution, he would bounce up and down with excitement. And who could forget his tutorial on the legal problems posed by R v Bourne (the defendant who forced his wife to have sex with their dog), complete with “Get down, Rover!” actions? Roy Stuart told us that he argued only one case as an advocate in Canada and was frustrated that the judge did not understand the point he was making. So he decided that the academic life was more appropriate for him.

Céline reports that the Institute of Linguists got its charter.

bq. The Institute intends formally to commence operating as the Chartered Institute of Linguists from 1st September 2005, falling in line with the start of its financial year. The petition also empowers the new Chartered Institute to confer the status of “Chartered Linguist” upon suitably qualified linguists across the profession. In this regard consultation with professional colleagues in other relevant membership bodies will continue, with a view to offering the distinguished designation in the near future.

The IoL does represent not only translators and interpreters, but also language teachers. I’m suspicious of qualifications for translation and attempts to regulate the profession. I wonder what a chartered linguist is?

bq. Mr. Henry Pavlovich, Chief Executive of the Institute of Linguists, said: “This is a major step forward for the public and people working with or through languages. The award of a Royal Charter is a mark of approbation for the profession. We hope that linguists everywhere will wish to consider individual chartered status in their own right whether or not they become members of the Chartered Institute of Linguists.”

So it could be open to members of the ITI too, perhaps only people living in the UK.

What Should I Read Next? is a website where you can enter the titles of your favourite books (you get help) and then you get a suggestion of something else you might like to read.

I tried a reverse approach and entered the titles of four books I don’t like (The White Hotel, Life of Pi, Norwegian Wood and Ulysses) and it came up with:

Amy Tan, The Hundred Secret Senses
Ray Bradbury, The Martian Chronicles
Armistead Maupin, 28 Barbary Lane – A Tales of the City Omnibus
Douglas Coupland, Microserfs
Douglas Coupland, Girlfriend in a Coma

This is worrying. I would have put Microserfs and Maupin on my favourites list, and I suspect Amy Tan is OK. I doubt I would like Ray Bradbury – that’s science fiction, isn’t it?

I then tried it again with some favourite books (you can have it store your list with your email address, but I didn’t do that): The Blue Flower, Tales of the City, The Remains of the Day, Kitchen, American Psycho, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime (Adult edition! – but the text is identical to the children’s edition, after all).

I was excited to see if I got more good suggestions than before, but at first there was a bug in the script (it’s in beta). I kept trying and got:

Douglas Coupland, Hey Nostradamus!
Arundati Roy, The God of Small Things
Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
Mikael Niemi, Popular Music
Ian McEwan, Enduring Love

Of course, it’s hard to judge the ones I don’t know, so maybe this is good. I can’t say The God of Small Things is my favourite Indian novel (I preferred A Suitable Boy), and the last McEwan I read was a disappointment – possibly over my head, although that one set in Venice was good.

(Via Random Acts of Reality)

Some clients would like me to use the English ‘official designations’ of the German Länder recommended by the Auswärtiges Amt:

AMTLICHE BEZEICHNUNGEN DER BUNDESLÄNDER Stand: 14.05.2002
ENGLISCH

(Land) Baden-Württemberg
(Free State of) Bavaria
(Land) Berlin
(Land) Brandenburg
(Free Hanseatic City of) Bremen
(Free and Hanseatic City of) Hamburg
(Land) Hesse
(Land) Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania
(Land) Lower Saxony
(Land) North-Rhine/Westphalia
(Land) Rhineland-Palatinate
Saarland
(Free State of) Saxony
(Land) Saxony-Anhalt
(Land) Schleswig-Holstein
(Free State of) Thuringia

Does anyone see my problem?

Maybe I’m just a fuddy-duddy, but I thought Cornish was dead. How can money be put into keeping it alive? But it seems I was ill-informed – see the Wikipedia link at the bottom.

bq. The government money is on the table and the political will in Whitehall and Europe is apparently growing to help Cornish speakers turn their native tongue into a viable, living language.
But there is one stumbling block: Cornish speakers cannot agree on how their language should be spelt.

Apparently there are three kinds of Cornish, and no progress is likely to be made until one of them is chosen to support.

bq. A conference is being organised in September at which the warring factions will again try to agree on how Cornish – or, depending on your fancy, Kernewek, Kernowek, Kernuak or Curnoack – should be spelt.

(from the Guardian)

The Ethnologue

Wikipedia