Our Top 5 must reads this week

With the arrival of the film, wait for it… Arrival (couldn’t resist!), Slate published an article featuring an interview with “Betty Birner, a professor of linguistics and cognitive science at Northern Illinois University” who provides an interesting insight into the film.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2016/11/22/a_linguist_on_arrival_s_alien_language.html

And from the same article author, Marissa Martinelli, we learned why Moana is a MoaNO in Italy; showing just how important localisation really is!

http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2016/11/18/disney_changes_moana_to_oceania_in_italy_because_of_porn_actress_moana_pozzi.html

Putting some locomotion into the topic of localisation we think Chiara Ferrari’s article on “strategies employed in translating The Simpsons” makes it clear just how extensive and creative some changes need to be. Learn why Moe becomes Boe in Italian and how the writers get creative with the use of Italian regional accents!

https://www.jstor.org/stable/20688622?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

As Brexit talks continue and the Italian Referendum approaches, this article touches upon whether the word “Brexit” in other languages should be a masculine or a feminine noun.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/oct/19/el-brexit-la-brexit-eu-divided-over-gender-of-uk-departure

And finally, moving on from the discussion of masculine/feminine we liked this article on the subject of plurals. Maybe it was because of the pictures of cats in hats, or the fact that you stop and think about the words listed; this post from the OxfordWords blog makes our top 5 this week!

https://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2015/05/12-nouns-that-are-always-plurals/

Happy reading!