This website was set up to accompany my newsletter on how English is evolving and how it is spoken around the world.
I like making lists. I like categorising the things I come across. It’s just how I tick.
This website is a side project, and I usually only come to it once a month, when I’m writing my newsletter. I’ll change the most embarrassing things (telling myself: what was I thinking last month?), make plans for the future, half-implement those plans, and then leave the website half-finished again. Which is probably how you found it right now.
I’ve also (January 2024) started taking the whole blogging thing more seriously.
But, you know, it is a work in progress (hah!).
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Heddwen Newton is an English teacher and translator. She is fascinated by contemporary English and the way English changes. Her newsletter is English in Progress. More than 2300 subscribers and growing every day!
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Hi, Heddwen,
I am responding to your discussion in the Grammar Girl podcast about translation, and you said the ChatGTP is doing more and more translating of instruction manuals — probably an explanation of how bad such writing is. Years ago, just after the earth’s crust hardened, I was an editor with a group of technical writers, producing instruction manuals for a heavy-equipment manufacturer. Our the lunch hour, one guy bought a little toy animal that you drop in water and it swells to about five times its size. The instructions (translated from Chinese) said, “Drop in water for observation and admiration of the swelling.” We figured what they wanted to say was, “Drop it in water and watch it grow!”