language – Page 2 – don't confuse the narrator

lost in translation

Sadly, the utter magnificence and glory of this rhododendron has been lost in my attempt to translate it into a photograph.

I, too, am – or should be – lost in translation, as I have a deadline approaching at a worrying rate of knots.

When I’m in Spain I can go for weeks without watching or reading a weather forecast: que será, será and we’ll deal with it when it happens. In the UK, though, weather is a sort of national pastime, and I’ve known whole days planned around which TV channel is showing the weather forecast and at what time.
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dictionary delight

When I visit my elderly mother we usually spend the evening with the newspaper puzzle page. (A single crossword can distract from many cross words.) It’s the cryptic crossword that we enjoy most and, between us, we often complete it. Yesterday, we attempted the one from the i newspaper, abandoning it with some half dozen clues unanswered.

The crossword always seems easier the next day – I suspect it’s telepathic communication with all those readers who’ve checked their answers early on! – so we had another look this morning and finally had it completed all but one clue.

The clue was “A free broadcaster?” and the letters we had were:
A _ N _ I _
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contradictionary

In a story on 20 Minutos, the on-line version of one of Spain’s free newspapers, The Secretary of the Real Academia Española, Darío Villanueva is quoted as having said:

“El Diccionario no puede ser políticamente correcto porque la lengua sirve para amar, pero también para insultar. No podemos suprimir las palabras que usamos cuando nos enfadamos o cuando somos injustos, arbitrarios o canallas.” *

I find this odd, as I thought the whole point of the RAE was prescription not description.
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somewhere in middle england

While many other people were busy celebrating ‘the wedding of the year’, I took a day off in Nottingham and revisited places that haven’t changed for centuries, although the areas around them have altered so much in 30 years that I had difficulty identifying any connection with the time I spent here in the Seventies.

At the castle I found this stone as part of a large display of inlaid decorated paving in the gallery forecourt: