Philip Sidney, romancer

"Fool," said my Muse to me...

- Sir Philip Sidney ('courtier, soldier, poet and romancer'), Astrophel and Stella

And the award for Best Use of the Phrase 'Uncorrected Proof' goes to...

from 'Letters to a Translator'

There are many more modes of the past than those allowed by Imperfect, Perfect & Pluperfect!

I racked my brain for a better way of rendering "Wehswirtschaft" (p.14), but not to much avail.

I haven't had proofs from "Sprache im technischen Zeitalter" (what a stupid name for a journal)...

- WG Sebald, 'Letters to a Translator' in Little Star 5 (2014)

Favourite footnotes: 8

(A good dictionary and usage dictionary are strongly recommended. You're insane if you don't own these already.)

- David Foster Wallace, teaching materials (English 183D, Pomona College, 2008), in The David Foster Wallace Reader

Books I've actually finished lately: 68

I am indebted to Google Translate

for the information - happened upon mid-translation of a 'German' poem - that the adjective 'englisch' means, among other things, 'angelic' (obv.) and 'medium-rare' (less obv.), and the proper noun 'die Engländer' can be 'monkey wrench'.

Waterstone(')s

Waterstones, formerly Waterstone's, is a British book retailer...

- Wikipedia

What am I to make of the fact

that my Samsung Galaxy tablet incorrects my 'P.S.'s to 'Please. Sorry.'s?

InDefinition - 76

smyrniote, n. slightly bigger than a smidgen

Found in books - 7

In a copy of Salman Rushdie: Sentenced to Death by WJ Weatherby, a time-sheet for Talon Security Services Ltd, week ending the 4th of October.

InDefinition - 75

Nthusiasm, n. dilettantism; short attention span

Fitzcarraldo

Only books provide some measure of comfort.

- Werner Herzog, Conquest of the Useless

Keystroke twins - 35

manly
manky

Books I've actually finished lately: 67

What enabled me to give up [smoking] was the realisation I could go on loathing the campaigners without continuing to damage my health.

- Wendy Cope

Not from Blackadder(?) - 3

As you wrestle with the rantings of Austria's most lethal watercolourist...

- Richard Lea, in The Guardian

Poetry at the movies

You dare to cast aspersions?! I am not the one who was entertaining with a failed poet...!

- Mortdecai

Not from Blackadder(?) - 2

[He] was, in fact, born in Smyrna ... where his father, George Herbert Willans, was Assistant Locomotive, Carriage and Wagon Superintendent of the Ottoman Aidan Railway.

- Wendy Cope, Life, Love and The Archers

Keystroke twins - 34

slummy
plummy

'Chiefly British'

(Definition also new to me.)

Keystroke twins - 33

barmaid
carnage

Book sale!!!*

--
* in Sri Lanka