Language

  • And now, a message about the prime minister…

    Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Oddities, Politics, Social Media

    As seen yesterday on the fringes of Bristol’s Broadmead shopping ‘quarter’.

    Sticker reading Rishi Sunak is a pussy hole.

    As it bears no imprint, your correspondent doubts this is official party political campaign material.

    However, it is on a par with former Scottish First Minister Nicola Surgeon’s assessment of one of Sunak’s predecessors in the post, namely disgraced former party-time prime minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson.

    Further less than complementary appraisals of senior Tory politicians, including one comparing lettuce shelf-life prime minister Mary Elizabeth Truss to a marzipan sex toy, were subsequently revealed to be spurious.

  • Tilde lands Breton parents in court

    Steve WoodsLanguage, Media, Politics

    Baby's feet being held by female hand. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.A couple from the Maine-et-Loire region has been summons to appear in court for having named their son Fañch, a traditional Breton name with a tilde (which equates to François in French. Ed.), French broadcaster France 3 reports.

    The tilde (~) is a diacritic whose use is not permitted in birth, death and marriage certificates in France, despite its existence in Breton, the traditional regional language of Brittany.

    The couple have been summonsed to appear before the family court in February for their choice of first name for their son, who was born last summer. The registrar at the maternity hospital had warned the parents that the spelling of Fañch could pose a problem, but they stuck by their decision. The mother is of Breton descent.

    The public prosecutor’s office in Angers has now initiated proceedings to ask the judge to remove the first name Fañch from the birth certificate and to give the child another first name minus the tilde, with or without parental consent. The public prosecutor is using a circular of July 23 2014 as the legal basis for his action. This circular lists the diacritics such as the cedilla, grave and acute accents and diaeresis authorised for use on civil registration documents.

    “We’ve been told we are not taking the best interests of our child into account,” said the mother. “That’s harsh. Just because of a tilde, it’s implied that we’re bad parents.”

    Strange first names often mocked

    In its summons the Angers public prosecutor’s office recalls that “The civil code provides that “the child’s first names are chosen freely by its father and mother”, but with the child’s best interests as a limit”.

    First names have often been banned because they were likely to give rise to ridicule. Thus the parents of little Titeuf, Fraise, Nutella, Mini-Cooper or the Babord and Tribord twins have had to amend their children’s birth certificates.

    First names intended to pay homage to the parents’ idols – e.g. “Griezmann-Mbappé” or “MJ” in reference to Michael Jackson – have likewise been censured, then censored.

    Fañch, a traditional Breton first name

    The problem of the tilde in Fañch is different, because in several cases the courts ultimately ruled in favour of the parents who had chosen this traditional Breton first name. Thus, one little Fañch who was born in Quimper in 2017, finally saw the Court of Appeal rule in favour of his parents after a legal case lasting over two years.

    Politicians and civil society organisations swung into action citing the European Court of Human Rights affirming that “the choice of first name has an intimate and emotional character and consequently belongs to the realm of private life.”

    The cultural council of Brittany has also commented, rejecting the argument that the “ñ” is a foreign character since it has been used “for centuries in Latin, French, Gallo, Breton and Basque and is not an exclusive feature of Spanish”.

    A long battle before the courts, parliament and the Constitutional Council

    In February 2020, a parliamentary report drew up a list of diacritics used in regional languages such as Breton, Tahitian, Alsatian, Corsican or Creole, recommending in particular use of the tilde be permitted to “clarify the current situation and to definitively thwart any refusals which could opposed parents’ legitimate requests for recognition of the integrity of their name or the first name that they have chosen to give to their child be respected.”

    The provision was then rejected by the Constitutional Council which thought this would be tantamount to giving individuals “a right to use a language other than French in their relations with public sector organisations and public services.”

    The proceedings initiated against the couple from Maine-et-Loire will therefore mark a new skirmish in this long battle.

    France is one of a handful of countries in western Europe not to have ratified the Council of Europe’s European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages.

  • Its name is Cymru, not a Saxon slur

    Steve WoodsLanguage, Politics

    To the west of a ditch and bank built by the Saxon Offa of Mercia between the Irish and the Severn Seas, lies a country with a language and culture distinct from the English. It’s called Cymru by its inhabitants known as the Cymry.

    These words are descended from the Brythonic word combrogi, meaning fellow-countrymen and probably came into use before the 7th century.

    Some time before then, but after the Roman occupiers of Britannia withdrew in the early 5th century, incomers from the other side of the North Sea started to arrive and settle on the eastern and southern shores of what is now England. These incomers included the Angles, Saxons and Jutes.

    Map of Britain in 500 CE showing distribution of Britons speaking Cymraeg and other Celtic languages, plus areas where incomers from Europe predominated
    Image courtesy of Project Gutenberg and Wikimedia Commons.

    These new arrivals brought their language with them, which over time developed into English, which went on with addenda and changes from other languages (including early French and Norse) in subsequent times to become one of the world’s most widely used tongues in today’s world.

    One word these Germanic speakers brought with them was Waelh, denoting a foreigner.

    That word survives today as the name of a country known in English as Wales, thus denoting it as a land of people who weren’t Saxon and talked funny, hence Offa’s action of putting a defensive boundary between him and his and those over the dyke who most likely ate funny food too.

    Following recent changes to the names of two national parks – Eryri and Bannau Brycheiniog – in Cymru to their equivalents in Cymraeg, a petition to call the country solely by the name Cymru has now been posted on the Senedd’s website and is collecting signatures. At the time of writing, it has collected nearly 9,000 signatures. A total of 10,000 is required before it will be considered for debate in Caerdydd.

    The text of the petition states:

    Wales is a name imposed on Cymru and is essentially not a Welsh word at all. The world knows about Wales because of its English connection since 1282. Hardly anyone has heard of Cymru or realises that we have our own unique language and culture which is totally different from the other countries within the United Kingdom.

    Sign the petition.

    Update 07/01/24: The petition has now reached over 9,000 signatories.

    Update 12/01/24: The petition will now be considered for debate by the Senedd, having now reached over 10,400 signatories.

  • American Idiots

    Steve WoodsLanguage, Media, Oddities, Politics, Social Media

    Another day, another social media post showing how unaware some people are of the world about them, particularly in relation to popular music and politics.

    Green Day is an American rock band with a reputation of not being afraid to include political content in their lyrics.

    Take the song American Idiot, for instance.


    Released in 2004, it’s a protest song critical of the policies of the then US President, one George W. Bush, particularly his response to the atrocities of September 11 and his subsequent launch of the so-called War on Terror. It clearly went down well upon release as it was nominated for four 2005 Grammy Awards: Record of the Year, Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal, Best Rock Song and Best Music Video. According to Wikipedia, it is considered one of the band’s signature songs.

    As a prominent element of Green Day’s discography, the band performed it on ABC’s broadcast of Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve With Ryan Seacrest, but with a modern update, used the opportunity to call out Trump supporters by changing one word in the original lyrics, amending the line “I’m not part of a redneck agenda” to “I’m not part of the MAGA agenda“.

    This did not go down well with the right-leaning part of the populace of the 50 states, who denounced the band on social media.

    Then there were those like the gentleman in the screenshot* below, who seems totally oblivious to the blatantly political content of the original song or did not engage brain before placing fingers on keyboard and posting the following,an action which resulted in him ending up with his foot firmly inserted in his mouth.

    Post reads - You know the more I thought about it, why did Green Day have to insert politics into their performance of American Idiot? We're trying to get away from that for a few hours.

    For the benefit of Mr Starzynski and his like, your ‘umble scribe has transcribed the full, original lyrics of American Idiot below. 😀

    Don’t wanna be an American idiot
    Don’t want a nation under the new media
    And can you hear the sound of hysteria?
    The subliminal mind fuck America

    Welcome to a new kind of tension
    All across the alienation
    Where everything isn’t meant to be okay
    Television dreams of tomorrow
    We’re not the ones who’re meant to follow
    For that’s enough to argue

    Well maybe I’m the faggot America
    I’m not a part of a redneck agenda
    Now everybody do the propaganda
    And sing along to the age of paranoia

    Welcome to a new kind of tension
    All across the alienation
    Where everything isn’t meant to be okay
    Television dreams of tomorrow
    We’re not the ones who’re meant to follow
    For that’s enough to argue

    Don’t want to be an American idiot
    One nation controlled by the media
    Information age of hysteria
    It’s calling out to idiot America

    Welcome to a new kind of tension
    All across the alienation
    Where everything isn’t meant to be okay
    Television dreams of tomorrow
    We’re not the ones who’re meant to follow
    For that’s enough to argue

    Have a Happy New Year, y’all!

    * = Courtesy of George Takei‘s Mastodon account.

  • Hey Boss! I’ve found a Huge typo!

    Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Media

    In the general torpor that obtains around this time of year, the proofreader at the Temple Way Ministry of Truth, otherwise know as the Bristol (Evening) Post/Bristol Live (a Retch plc publication. Ed.) has been caught in flagrante delicto asleep at his/her desk.

    Today the Bristol (Evening) Post/Bristol Live published a piece on its website of great interest to price-conscious followers of fashion that would enable them to save hundreds of pounds, as per the screenshot below.

    Headline - Primark's 'retro' £12 dress that's very similar to £1,300 Huge Boss item
    A saving of £1,288? That’s Hugo!

    I’ve never heard of Huge Boss myself, but the paper’s author Emma Grimshaw clearly has as the name appears not just in the headline, but in the copy itself.

    Primark fans are rushing to buy the chain’s ‘retro’ black dress. The £12 item also looks very similar to a Huge Boss outfit, but costs a fraction of the price.

    Your ‘umble scribe has, however, heard of Hugo Boss AG of Metzingen, Germany which like its rival Huge Boss as per the Post/Bristol Live also sells ‘luxury‘, i.e. overpriced, clothing and fashion accessories.

    In the world of intellectual/imaginary property, Huge Boss’ behaviour is known as passing off, i.e. misrepresenting the goodwill of an established company.

    If the Bristol (Evening) Post/Bristol Live ever gets round to reporting the trade mark dispute between Hugo Boss AG and Huge Boss, your ‘umble scribe hopes it employs someone who knows how to proofread copy to do the job!. 😀

  • “Much lover,” my luvver?

    Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Media, Oddities

    Further evidence arrives today of the continuing decline of journalistic standards at Reach plc titles – already a bar so low it’s in danger of touching the ground.

    The proof: the author of this piece in today’s Bristol (Evening) Post/Live cannot even spell one of the title’s favourite clichés – much-loved – opting for a Bristolian sounding but meaningless much lover instead.

    Headline - Tributes after much lover Antiques Roadshow expert Henry Sandon dies

    What is even more surprising is that the author is an award-winner within the journalistic trade.

    If the qualityu control for press articles is as low as that down at Bristol’s Temple Way Ministry of Truth, your ‘umble scribe wonders just how much lower it must be where gongs for hacks are involved… :-D.

  • LibreOffice Nepalese Localisation Sprint

    Steve WoodsLanguage, Open Source, Open Standards, Tech

    Language localisation is the process of adapting a product’s translation to a specific country or region. It forms the second phase of a larger process of product translation and cultural adaptation (for specific countries, regions, cultures or groups) to account for differences in distinct markets, a process known as internationalisation and localisation.

    The Document Foundation blog today reports on the Localisation Sprint held in October and November by the LibreOffice Nepali community in October and November, which bore the tagline “Unlock Native: LibreOffice Speaks Nepali“.

    LibreOffice Nepalese localisation sprint participants
    Image courtesy of The Document Foundation blog.

    The sprint was mentored by localisation expert Saroj Dhakal, Suraj Bhattarai, LibreOffice’s liaison officer and Kathmandu University engineering student Aadarsha Dhakal. Kkey open source community and student clubs from different part of Nepal were invited and the invitation was generously accepted by AskBuddie, Kathmandu University Open Source Community (KUOSC), Birendra Open Source Club (BOSC), and Nepal Open Source Klub (NOSK). Furthermore, many volunteers came forward and expressed their willingness to join in and contribute to the LibreOffice project.

    As many of the volunteers were new to the process, mentors made participants familiar with the localisation process in our tools, with a quick demonstration on how to proceed with strings, checks and different glossary terms.

    Due to major festivities there was a 19 day gap in the sprint, which eventually ended in November (making it the third longest ever Nepalese localisation event. Ed.) after several thousand strings had been localised. Well done all in Nepal!

  • Seasonal pedantry

    Steve WoodsLanguage, Oddities

    It’s that time of year again and, much to the discomfiture of my dear sister, Slade and Wizzard are busy filling the space in the Temples of Mammon with their decades-old guaranteed pension payment ‘Christmas’ songs, whilst in less venal environments, ‘Bah! Humbug!’ is being exclaimed by curmudgeons embracing their inner Ebenezer Scrooge and in yet other spaces, carols are being sung; and not just in church either.

    According to Wikipedia, the English word carol is derived from the Old French word carole, a circle dance accompanied by singers. Carole itself is derived from the Latin choraula. Carols were very popular as dance songs from the 1150s to the 1350s, after which their use expanded as processional songs sung during festivals, whilst others were written to accompany religious mystery plays (such as the “Coventry Carol“, written before 1534).

    Just as in normal speech, punctuation is important in singing as it determines how the words are to be sung and with what emphasis.

    How many readers have noted the comma in God rest you merry, gentlemen? The comma is essential to denote that the menfolk in question are being wished a merry time, which is a somewhat different prospect from what is brought to mind by the comma-less merry gentlemen who have clearly been indulging in Christmas cheer and probably need a lie-down and a nap.

    Here’s a handy video to explain the pendantry.


    For those who doubt the existence of the comma, here’s the sheet music for confirmation.

    Sheet music for God rest you merry, gentlemen.
    Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

    Tip o’ the hat: David Allen Green

  • LibreOffice news – a beta and a pledge

    Steve WoodsLanguage, Open Source, Open Standards, Tech

    Yesterday saw the release of the first beta version of LibreOffice 24.2, the forthcoming next version of this popular free and open source office suite, which is due for release on February 2024, as announced on the LibreOffice QA blog.

    LibreOffice about window

    Your ‘umble scribe has already downloaded the beta from the development builds server for testing. So far it’s working well with my usual suite of extensions, which extend the software’s functionality.

    If anything untoward occurs with the beta, then a bug report will be filed.

    Meanwhile, in the boardroom…

    Away from coding, news has arrived that elections are to be held soon for the Board of The Document Foundation (TDF), the German-based non-profit organisation behind LibreOffice.

    Eleven member of the LibreOffice community are standing as candidates with a joint Pledge (our promise) to the LibreOffice community. It’s not just a positive vision of the future, but includes immediate action points that we can take to fix TDF from the outset.

    The eleven are Sophie Gautier, Eliane Domingos, Osvaldo Gervasi, Paolo Vecchi, Jean-Baptiste Faure, Franklin Weng, Daniel Rodriguez, Mike Saunders, me (Andreas Mantke), Jean-François Nifenecker and Enio Gemmo.

    The eleven candidates for the TDF board

    The full English text of the Pledge is reproduced below, in addition to which it has been translated into the following languages:

    The Pledge itself reads as follows verbatim:

    Our main promises to you

    We will bring back tenders.

    • We will implement tenders in a way that allows more companies to participate.
    • Having only very few and always the same bidders is not sustainable. We will bring a tender process that creates a welcoming environment for all potential bidders. We will create opportunities for everyone, from single developers to large organisations.
    • We will hear the valuable input from the Engineering Steering Committee on the important projects and will make them a reality.
    • We will work together with the valuable companies from the ecosystem, existing and new ones. Together we will achieve something good for LibreOffice and for everyone involved.

    We will be an open and transparent board from day one. We are accountable to all of you. We will not act as a closed group.

    • We will have no private board meetings, unless it is absolutely necessary. With very little room for exceptions, there will be only public meetings with a proper agenda and proper minutes that we share in time.
    • Board meetings will be at different times. We want that all community members have a chance to join, especially those who cannot participate during working hours.
    • There will be fewer, but much more effective meetings. We will focus on strategy, not on day-to-day micromanagement. Meetings every two weeks hardly work for volunteers. A lot more responsibility for everyday business can be laid in the hands of the team.
    • We promise monthly public status reports to show what the board is working on. They will be translated into many languages. We encourage and take feedback from the worldwide community to the heart. You are experts in your fields and we listen to you.
    • We will install a liquid democracy system as proper tooling for direct community participation in the foundation’s decisions.

    We will break the language barriers. English is not a requirement to participate any more.

    • We will make sure agenda and minutes for board meetings will be translated into many languages.
    • If English is used, we will use “simple plain English”, so more people can understand.
    • We promise monthly public calls with the native language community. We want to hear from you and support your activities.
    • For these calls, we will ask community members to help with live translation, so all community members can participate.
    • We will host at least one of the next two official LibreOffice Conferences out of Europe, e.g. in South America or Asia.

    We will value all contributors equally.

    • Developers and non-developers, volunteers, company employees and TDF’s team, we are all one, respectable community.
    • Nobody should be discriminated for their role. Nobody should be scared to speak out in public.
    • We will credit contributors publicly.
    • Nobody should feel like “second class” community members any more.
    We also promise you this

    We will make TDF recognized.

    • We will work hard to have TDF be recognized worldwide at governmental level and within the European Union. We will start to actively contact them as a non-profit foundation.
    • As one of the leading foundations, TDF must “sit at the table” in standards bodies and when important legislative decisions are taken. We must be seen as a trustworthy reference point of contact for office productivity.

    We will actively grow the ecosystem.

    • We will create incentives for current and new companies working with LibreOffice.
    • We will support them to enter the market.
    • Our goal is to have at least two independent companies joining the market in the next two years and many new products based on LibreOffice Technology.
    • We will not only aim at direct code contributions, but also ease of use, accessibility and documentation. There will be many more companies that can bid on tenders for work that was underloved for some time.
    • We will evaluate the hiring of an independent business partner manager, with a proper mission to achieve this goal and be accountable.
    • We will work with the ecosystem on solutions for online and mobile versions of LibreOffice, that benefit both the companies and the community.

    We will make development more fun and support our fantastic developer community.

    • We will support the community to organize more Hackfests again, ideally in different countries.
    • We will offer the developer community to evaluate new and more modern development tools that could make hacking on LibreOffice more exciting and more fun. We will let the developers independently voice what is best for LibreOffice and we are committed to invest in areas important for our developer community.
    • We will evaluate to hire one or more developers to fix the most reported bugs from the community and grow the code contributions from the foundation itself. This makes us a better free software and open source citizen.
    • We will develop a strategic development plan for the next 24 months, with measurable goals and milestones.
    • We will seek funding to implement, directly or through partners, features and improvements that would make a difference to many people and uses.
    How we will achieve our goals

    Promises are easy to make. Here is our plan how to make them a reality:

    Legal issues have been in the way for several years now. If we work together with shared goals in mind, seriously take into account our legal counsels’ advise, we can very soon focus again on actual and important projects that are not getting done right now, because too much time is spent with fights and discussions.

    We have experts in many fields in our community, in the companies and in our team – let’s source their knowledge and their passion for LibreOffice! We will encourage everyone to speak out, contribute their knowledge and bring in their unique skills and talent. We will work with trust, respect and mutual appreciation, to achieve the best for TDF.

    Good ideas need space to develop and unfold. Only then we can bring the office suite to a new threshold of effectiveness, user friendliness and only then we can evaluate new technologies for incorporation into LibreOffice.

    We will also encourage everyone to work much more with other free and open source communities or civil society organizations, to widen their horizon, contribute something good to the world and also learn what challenges others face and how they deal with them.

    Conflicts of Interest

    One of the main challenges in the past board term was conflict of interest. We don’t want endless discussions, we will implement the solution.

    Some of us are members of the team and get paid by TDF, others are working for companies that make business with LibreOffice. We know that there is no difficulty left if people with conflicts of interest are barred from being near decision making. And therefore we hereby promise and guarantee that we will keep out of all decisions and also discussions that could affect our own personal interests, and that we will declare these interests regularly.

    Board members who are also team members will work on board matters in their spare time. All board members will follow the existing conflict of interest policy and keep out from any discussion and any decision that could create a conflict of interest for them.

    Our goal is to “prevent possible conflicts of interest within the foundation” as laid down in the statutes and set a standard to follow.

    The Document Foundation has been built by the community, for the community. We are members of the community who want to run for the next election of the board, to bring TDF back to its golden times – with a happy community, working together creatively, inspiring each other, where everyone has a place to contribute to our common goal.

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