Friend Valerio and his brother have set up a website dedicated to Georges Brassens, translating his compositions into English. I was asked to help check the English.
Yesterday, I noticed a Union Jack at the top of the page we were looking at, so I queried it, “What’s it doing up there?” Valerio said it was to indicate that the English used in their translations is British English. I pointed out that I’d spotted some American English conventions dotted around some of their pages (spelling, e.g.).
Valerio, being the sort of knowledge-thirsty person that he is, then did some research into the use of national flags to indicate the language used, and found that it’s actually problematic. For example, which flag to use for countries that speak Spanish, or French, just to name two. Some countries change their flags. Flags can be a political symbol, nothing to do with language. And so on.
My nephew is a designer, so I immediately thought of him, as he might think of using this short cut in his designs. I messaged him and started off saying, “This might be useful information for you in your work, so I thought I’d flag it up.” Then I realised I’d done an unconscious pun!
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