The last couple of days have been lingusitic ones. I was the lucky recipient of a German quilting magazine in a Swapbot swap recently and was delighted to find that despite not having used my A level German since school ( except to order few Wurst on a weekend to Berlin) that I could get much of the content of the magazine and had fun picking up specialist vocab ('rotary cutter etc') from the context. I showed it to a fellow quilter who found a Scandinavian shop who sent her back copies of a different German magazine.. .and she speaks not a word! So I decided that it would be fun to use these magazine to brush up on my language skills ( and that brushing up on my language skills justified two more potential subscritions, of course). So I went to Borders in Leeds to get a German - English dictionary to help me with the words I didn't recognise.
There were several to pick from so I took a sample of words that cropped up in one article to test to see which magazine had the most specialist words in. I ended up with a Berlitz one but interestingly not a single one had the word 'quilt' as a verb!
It does pay to read carefully though. I was a little bemused as to why Dijanne Ceval had learned to applique with corruption when she was a child. Until I turned a page and found that Filz translates as felt as well as corruption and filth! (Reminescent of the double meaning of fleece in English - isn't language cool?!)
From that interview I have a fabulous title for a quilt: 'Meine Spitzen treffen sich nie'...... My points never meet. I just have to design something to go with that. Although knowing my luck if I design non-meeting points they will probably meet!
Then today I came home from Leeds to find I had been sent a copy of my very first book written in 1997, translated into Czech. Very odd.
Finally to pick up one or two comments - I very much value comments and knowing that people read me although I am bad at commenting on them ( mental note: must do better). Plus I will check out your blog if you read me. So, the idea about travelling with a miners headlamp is a great one becuase often hotel rooms don't have that many sockets. And they NEVER have a socket by the bed - which is just where you need it if you want to charge your phone battery overnight but not have to get up and walk across the room in the morning to put the alarm on the phone on snooze!
And when I said ladies of a certain age in an earlier post, I meant women in their seventies so I think those of you who were a bit worried need not be! Besides it wasn't meant as derrogatory. I hope to be like my Grandmother who talks about the old ladies in her church not getting out much and needing her to vist them. Gran is 85!
2 comments:
I have a couple of Norwegian quilting magazine floating about, if you'd like to try your hand at those? And as for the mobile/alarm clock on the other side of the room, maybe this isn't the kind of thing that would float your boat then?
http://www.nandahome.com/products.clocky.html
I'll pass on the language but if they have good piccies send them along. And as for the clock on that link... no I like to snooze not chase my clock thank you very much!
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