Ronder Professional

English language editing and Spanish translation

[Ronder Professional @ronderpro]

@OliverKamm Really odd. He's literally given the adjective and for some reason runs with the noun. But thinking adjective means describing word wouldn't preclude selection of 'notorious' here. Maybe he was just fuzzy on the categories and wanted to avoid repetition?

[Oliver Kamm @OliverKamm]

In a catastrophic & humiliating performance by @GoodwinMJ, this is the most lamentable part. He doesn’t understand even the concept of English as an additional language, let alone the data. Anyone with self-respect caught out like this would publicly apologise & pulp the book.

[Merriam-Webster @MerriamWebster]

‘Booty’ and ‘butt’ are synonyms.

‘Call’ and ‘dial’ are synonyms.

But, a ‘booty call’ and a ‘butt dial’ are VERY different things.

[Quite Interesting @qikipedia]

Shortening a word and adding a y at the end as in ‘skint’ - ‘skinny’, ‘hospital’ - ‘hozzy’, or plastic - ‘plazzy’ is known in linguistics as ‘Scouse diddification’.

[Nicole Lampert @nicolelampert]

This photo from London at the weekend speaks a thousand words - pro Islamic Republic merges with the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Stop the War, the Socialist Worker and even the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (the irony is off the scale!). Just out of sight are the unions.
This is an anti Western conglomerate linked only by their hatred of Israel and the wider West.

[Ronder Professional @ronderpro]

@OliverKamm I'd further argue that 'If I was you' is just as acceptable in modern English as 'If I were you' as the first-person irrealis.

[Simon Schama @simon_schama]

one of the most stomach- turning qualities of many of the students who encamped and marched for Gaza is their inhuman indifference to the catastrophe that has befallen so many of their own age who have been slaughtered by the blood- boltered tyranny of Khameini and IRGC

[Steven Pinker @sapinker]

I spoke with @LaulPatricia about Marxism:

One is: What’s remarkable is that Marxism has been tried. Now, of course, defenders of Marxism say it hasn’t really been tried anywhere, but certainly the people who implemented it claimed they were implementing Marxism.

And this is a massive experiment—a global experiment—with a very clear outcome. Namely, the Soviet Union was a disaster. The imposition of communism on Eastern Europe was a disaster. The imposition of communism in Venezuela was a disaster. The imposition of communism in Maoist China was a disaster. Disaster in terms of both poverty and oppression and genocide and stupid wars. So the world has told us what happens under communism, and it’s a sign of how out of touch intellectuals can be that there are still people who defend it despite the entire world giving a very clear-cut answer.

One more is: would you rather live in North Korea or South Korea? Would you rather live in the old East Germany or West Germany? We have an experimental group and a matched control group in terms of culture, language, and geography, and the answer is crystal clear. So this is a sign of, I think, the pathology of intellectual life—that Marxism can persist.

The other is, you did call attention to one of the appeals of Marxism, though, and more generally of heavy, strong influence of government guided by intellectuals, which is that there are certain kinds of reforms that you can state as principles. You can articulate them verbally as propositions—like equality, human rights, democracy—but there’s other kinds of progress that take place in massive distributed networks of millions of people, none of whom implements some policy. But collectively, there is an order, an organization that’s beneficial.

So that can happen organically through, for example, the development of a language. No one designed the English language. It’s just hundreds of millions of English speakers. They coin new words. They forget old words. They try to make themselves clear. And we get the English language and the other 5,000 languages spoken on earth.

Likewise, a market economy is something where knowledge is distributed. You don’t have a central planner deciding how many shoes of size 8 will be needed in a particular city, but rather information is conveyed by prices, which are adjusted according to supply and demand. And you’ve got a distributed network of exchange of information that can result in an emergent benefit.

Now, intellectuals tend to hate that. They like rules of language—of correct grammar. They like top-down economic planning. They like cultural change that satisfies particular ideals described by intellectuals. And so rival sources of organization, like commerce, like culture—traditional culture—tend to be downplayed by intellectuals.

And this can be magnified by the fact that many dictatorships give a privileged role to intellectuals, which may be why, over the course of the 20th century, and probably continuing to the present, there has not been a dictator that has not had fans among intellectuals—including the mullahs and ayatollahs of Iran, but also the communist dictators: Mao and Castro, even Stalin in his day. And every other dictator has had, actually, often fawning praise from Western intellectuals.

[S Sebag Montefiore @simonmontefiore]

Read this. Plausible estimates that 43,000 killed in ten days in Iran by the dictatorship.

The scale is extraordinary.

It is worth recalling that just over 3000 were killed in the Shah’s forty year reign mostly in the 13 months 1978/9.

The lack of criticism by UN agencies,‘humanitarian’ NGOs, media and celebs is striking

[Ronder Professional @ronderpro]

@mtthw_smth @afneil Scots who'll do anything for their country but live there

[Edi Rama @ediramaal]

https://t.co/WlIb8ZvFbC

Ooopsss… Mr.@Nigel_Farage himself has just challenged me on the facts!

What an honor — for a “giant man,” as he described me (meaning, of course, from a “tiny country”) — to earn the attention of Britain’s unrivaled virtuoso of headline politics.

He said — and I quote:
“I tell you what, Mr. Rama, did you know one in 50 Albanians in Britain are in prison? So show some goodwill and take them all back tomorrow, because this is hypocrisy.”

Well, Mr. Farage — let me return the challenge with something unusually boring in your line of work: actual numbers.

That “one in 50 Albanians are in prison” claim? It’s not a fact. It’s bonkers. A classic from the post-truth Brexit playbook: “If it sounds scary, it must be true.”

Guess what? When the numbers are actually run — surprise! — even if we assumed every Albanian currently in prison is guilty (and in fact, many are caught up in an outdated and restrictive visa system), the rate of criminality among Albanians in the UK would be no higher than — and likely lower than — that of the British population itself.

Now, since we both seem to cherish “goodwill” and are clearly allergic to “hypocrisy,” here’s my offer:

Let’s both bring our numbers to the table. If your “one in 50” claim holds water — I will personally commit to taking them all back. That’s not a competing headline — it’s a public pledge.

But if your scary stat turns out to be just tabloid fuel, then no apology needed. No drama. Instead, you’ll come to Albania — as my guest of honor.

You’ll get real sun, real hospitality, and even more real facts — about Albania and its fabulous people. And all I ask in return is the simplest public pledge from you, made while enjoying our country: next time someone badmouths Albanians, you’ll be the first to tell them — in your histrionic way — not to do it again.

So what do you say? One fact-check for a full deportation — or a full vacation, with some of the warmest people you’ll ever meet.

Come on, Nigel. If you lose on a fact check, you’ll still win a whole nation of friends for life.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

[Ronder Professional @ronderpro]

@afneil Is there another kind of pablum?

[Oliver Kamm @OliverKamm]

It’s a novel approach to urge that a referendum vote be simply ignored and reversed. I wonder if he’s thought through the wider implications.

[Gideon Rachman @gideonrachman]

The award winning reporter, Andrew Norfolk, who broke the grooming scandal says that far from covering up the problem, Starmer made the prosecutions possible

[David Ronder @davidronder]

The inability of BBC Chair Samir Shah to write grammatically when pronouncing on Huw Edwards is one more depressing aspect of the whole sordid business.

[David Ronder @davidronder]

He's absolutely right, but I can't help feeling disappointed by the comma misuse in the first sentence.

[Iain Dale 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇬🇧 ⚒️ @IainDale]

Utterly disgraceful. Be very ashamed.

[David Ronder @davidronder]

A pretty cromulent selection 👍
https://t.co/LxLZs9HzuO

[David Ronder @davidronder]

Ah, so you can see the influence of German in the Yorkshire word "fynd". This is apparently a notable distinction from the standard English and "find" 🤔

[David Ronder @davidronder]

I'm editing a linguistic article today and have learned a new word: questionhood. Love it.