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Published Articles and Reviews about Language
How "Correct" Is British English? A first-hand look by an Anglo-American at the real differences between British & American English. Published by Translation News. A wildly popular on-line download on Compuserve's Foreign Language Education Forum.
Learning British English as a Foreign Language.
Essentially the "prequel" to the preceding piece, explaining how the author infiltrated the English language and English culture. From the "Sixties Book."
The Language Contest. A parable about all the languages of the world and which one is truly "best." Published by Language Monthly.
A Tour of "Loisaida." A 1990 piece about all the languages spoken on NYC's Lower East Side, with an implied message for the nations of Europe. Published by Language International.
The Challenge of Translating Chinese Medicine. This interview with the author reveals much about both the Chinese language and Chinese medicine and shows how problems in translating this difficult subject have slowed down wider public understanding of its principles. Published by Language Monthly, April, 1987.
"Fronting for Franco." The author's youthful sin: working as a radio announcer in Spanish and English for Radio Nacional de España. Published by Apuntes.
HermesGod of Translators and Interpreters: The Origins of Language and the Prehistory of Interpreting . A historical inquiry into the earliest days of interpreting, demonstrating how they provide a window onto both the "prehistory" of translation and the origins of language. Paper just presented on March 24 at the Translation2000 Conference, sponsored by the NYU Translation Studies Program.
Reviews:
"The Fifth Generation Fallacy." A review of a book about Japanese "Artificial Intelligence," revealing how some Japanese feel about their language. Published by Language Technology.
Writing About Writing, A review of Visible Speech, a book about Chinese by John de Francis. It is suggested that even experts can sometimes go too far in defense of their theories.
Two German Books About Machine Translation. Recently reviewed for the online publication Translation Journal.
Current Projects:
QWERTYUIOP OR OUR TYPEWRITER TERRITORY. A Whorfian Picture Parable for Adults, entirely devoted to QWERT, the creatures who live in QWERTYUIOP and whose entire lives are limited to those words and concepts that can be spelled with the top row of letters on the keyboard. Illustrations by Ilene Astrahan Gross.
WORD-WARP!another book of words and pictures, this one humorously illustrating the difference in meaning between two words spelled the same way but belonging to two different languages, for example, mist in English becomes "manure" in German, an ape becomes a "bee"in Italian, pain becomes "bread" in French, etc. Illustrations by Ilene Astrahan Gross.