Categories: community, translation
Date: 09 August 2007 19:27:24
Having set this blog up, I now feel overwhelmed almost to the point of speechlessness. In the best tradition of storytelling, I'll use the storytellers' ploy of playing for time to gather their thoughts. “Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin”.
Why have I named the blog "Lost in Translation"? Mainly because in spite of my advancing years, life still seems to be pretty mysterious and much of it "gets lost in translation". Translation is also the way I attempt to make a living - so there's another reason. I think/hope I'm managing to make sense of some of life's simpler concepts. Your role, gentle reader, is to try to make sense of the rest of it for me. So no pressure there, then.
And why have I chosen this heading for my first blog entry? It is adapted from the televised children's story, Noggin the Nog, which began “Listen to me and I will tell you the story of Noggin the Nog, as it was told in the days of old....” My intention is to record items of interest (to me, at least) about language, life and laughing matters - not necessarily in days of old but this will not be ruled out. So, generally, these topic should cover most bases, I think.
Apparently, 'noggin' is one of the very few surviving words of an ancient Celtic Brythonic language of pre-Roman Britain. This language clings to a straw in terms of survival in the phrase "use your noggin" (i.e.: 'use your head, think about a problem in order to solve it'). I can't say that I use the phrase very often but it handily fulfils one of the above criteria.