language & communication – Page 15 – don't confuse the narrator

4-ever?

This bench in the village reminded me of the story about the little boy who told his aunt, “I love you millions and billions.”

“I love you, too, dear,” she replied.

At which he burst into tears, sobbing, “Only two?”

write – edit – censor

I know a number of people who work for Spanish publications and call themselves redactores. Until recently, I thought they were simply writers.

Looking at the RAE gives a single meaning for redactar:

1. tr. Poner por escrito algo sucedido, acordado o pensado con anterioridad.

This doesn’t help me much, so I checked with a Spanish friend from the world of publishing who told me that redactar is not the same as escribir as it involves drawing together ideas and editing them into a coherent form. One example he gave was “you can’t redactar a shopping list.”
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where (how? when?) to begin?

Since I came across a story about procrastination on the BBC Magazine page, I have, of course, been putting off blogging about it.

There’s so much there that I could comment on that I hardly know where to begin. Instead, I’ve been following links to other stories and generally wasting time.

I would like to get this posted today, though, so have finally selected three points to focus on.
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it’s complicated

It’s May 29th, and apparently that means it’s Royal Oak Day. That in itself is simple enough, but for an angloparlante, discussing oaks trees and acorns with a Spaniard is complicated.
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Khayyam, again, and disappearing words

apple blossom — "...under the apple bough"

Yesterday’s post reminded me of a glosa – posted below – but then led me on in leaps and bounds to thinking about vocabulary. Specifically, about the word ‘bough’: when, and how, did I learn it?

It’s not exactly the sort of word that crops up in childhood conversation, so I’m pretty sure I must have read it. Which could either have been in a story or in a poem. Or, I suppose, at Christmas, when we “deck[ed] the halls with boughs of holly”. Perhaps that’s the most likely, as would explain how I learned to pronounce it, too.

The word ‘bough’ probably crops up in plenty of older stories and poems, but how much new writing contains such words?
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