Jude Seal's Notebook

{ Since the writing of this piece the problem described has been corrected - however the problems it revealed are an interesting insight into the problems of translating certain languages and so I have elected to leave this post in place, unedited }  Google Translate can be something of a revelation to many.  It can sometimes feel like a magical box into which one can type a sentence in another language and be supplied with its translation into your desired language.  If you are unaware of the language of the sentence you can use the Detect Language feature - allowing the Translate engine to work out what the source language is before translating it.  Google Translate is however, often ridiculed for its lack of accuracy – and this all relates to the problems of faced by machine translation.  The production of accurate translation relies on many factors - but particularly the nature of the input.  In terms of single words - even in its best reviewed and most...

We are at tipping point in a years-long struggle against racism.  Protests have sprung up all over the world, stemming from events in the USA.  This post is not intended to provide commentary on these events – there are many people far better placed to provide such comment – but rather to highlight something which I think is not completely understood regarding the etymology of a particular word, which can in context be considered a racial slur.  It has been in my mind to write this post for some time – stemming from conversations at the IMC in Leeds in 2019.  I decided to finish it off due to a recent conversation with a student with a similar background to me which revolved around the misunderstanding and misrepresentation of minority cultures.  Gibberish.   It’s a term that’s often thrown around in discussion and criticism.   A critic may condemn a writer’s prose style as ‘bordering on gibberish’.   A politician may call their opponent’s...