During our recent hols to Japan, I just about managed to master ‘hello’, ‘goodbye’, ‘thank you very much’ and ‘excuse me’ in Japanese. But the visit also made me realise how many Japanese loan words we have in the English language. Here are a few. Anime Anime is ‘cartoon’ in Japanese but refers to any kind of Japanese style animation. Comes from...
What do the likes of Paul Rand, Estee Lauder, Walt Disney and Voltaire have in common? Their wise words feature on this year's Turner Ink Christmas postcards. Thanks go to Spencer Peppiatt who designed the cards, Moo who printed them, and Best Buy Envelopes who supplied the transparent envelopes. Also, my thanks go to all the amazing clients who make this job so bloody great. ...
If you’re the kind of person that thinks ‘hiya’ is too casual, ‘hey’ is too American, ‘howdy’ is waaaay too American’ and ‘wassup’ should only ever be uttered in an ironic way, chances are you probably say ‘hello’ when you meet someone or write to them. But did you know that ‘hello’ as a salutation is a fairly recent development? In...
Turner Ink is on the move. Not far. Same building different floor. But an office move is always a good opportunity to have a bit of a clear out. This never happens of course because I’m a total hoarder. The upside of being a hoarder is that the stuff you hang on to for a ridiculous amount of time eventually...
“How do you spell schlep?” said a colleague in the office the other day. “Why?” I replied. “Because I’m Whatsapping my friend to tell her I think it’s a bit of a schlep from the bus stop to the bar.” Schlep or shlep, comes from the Yiddish word shlepn which means an arduous journey (from a bus stop to a bar)...
Who else is watching Deutschland 83 at the moment? It’s Channel 4’s German language TV series about the Cold War. Set in 1983 (obvs) it has a great soundtrack that includes New Order’s Blue Monday, Sweet Dreams by the Eurythmics and Modern Love by David Bowle (RIP). So far, I’ve learnt about four words of German. But it got me wondering...
I was thinking about Winston Churchill the other day, as you do. Actually I was mostly thinking about some of the rhetorical devices Churchill used in his speeches, such as anaphora. And that’s because I’d written different sectors, different clients, different countries in some copy and I was explaining to the client how that was ok. Anaphora, you may recall is...
This year's Turner Ink Christmas card featured my favourite type of lingo: slaaaaaaang. And if you're wondering what the heck they said - here are the translations. Cockney Rhyming Slang After Christmas kidney, turn off the custard and take the oxo or a sherbet to the rub-a-dub with a couple of chinas, then spend your bangers or cadge some bread for a few...
As a paid up sarf Londoner, there’s nothing I like more than a bit o’ slang, be it street, polari or cocker-nee. Unfortunately, I don't get to write it much in my everyday copywriting life. Strange that. So for a giggle, this year’s Christmas cards are written completely in slang. If you can fathom what they say, you could be in...
Whenever I need copy translating for a client I whizz it over to Tongue Tied to do the biz. All their translators are native speakers and understand the nuances of advertising copy. They also know their idioms from their elbows. So they've put together the following list of idioms, their foreign language equivalent and their literal translations for your amusement....
