22 January 2014

Exemplary punctuation

Under the heading The 5 Best Punctuation Marks in Literature, blogger Kathryn Schulz lists quotes featuring exemplary punctuation by five leading authors.

It would be nice to have some examples from technical journalism or translation. If anyone reading this has any, please feel free to contribute or comment.

Here's one modest example. The French expression plus ou moins has, perhaps surprisingly, a wider range of meaning than the corresponding more or less in English. Some of the equivalents listed in the Collins-Roberts French-English dictionary include: not very, just about, vaguely, and with varying degrees of. In some contexts, one option is to use more – or less –. The punctuation makes all the difference.

ChatGPT, a drafting aid for translation by emulation

On 17 October 2011, I published the first of two posts summarising my general approach to the type of translation/adaptation services I was ...