We hope you had a great weekend, folks, and welcome back for yet another Monday Morning Quote. Today’s quote is by the famous French author and philosopher, Voltaire, who wrote about reason, religion and liberty during the Age of Enlightenment. At the time, he was a frequenter of coffeehouses, which in their caffeine-loaded glory are noted by some historians to have been the impetus behind this new movement in higher thinking. In fact, Voltaire himself is said to have enjoyed anywhere from 50-70 cups a day (no wonder the guy was a bit of a nut).

Anything that is too stupid to be spoken is sung. - Voltaire Eighteenth Century Caffeine Addict

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Welcome back for Issue Ten of Your Own Terms, the biweekly comic about Sir Terminus: Crusader of Logic, Manly Valor, and Multilingual Terminology Management.

For this week’s comic, we thought we’d take a small break from Terminus’ shenanigans and focus a bit on the trials and tribulations of translators, the proverbial lifeblood of everything we do in the translation and localization industry. We hope you enjoy

Translators out there… got any other fun ones to share?

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Wednesday has come upon us once again, friends and language geeks, which means it’s time for Wacky Word Wednesday, a weekly celebration of the wackiest and most interesting words from around the world!

Today’s wacky word may initially seem like a bit of an odd choice, but a word is a word is a word… right? For your unusual reading pleasure, today’s word is: latrinalia.

The definition from TermWiki.com:

la·tri·na·li·a [lah-truh-nay-lee-uh] -noun markings made on the walls of restrooms; bathroom graffiti

This word is a neologism penned by a professor of folklore at Berkeley, Allen Dundes, in 1966. The etymology of latrinalia comes from combining the word latrine, which means toilet, and the suffix -alia, which indicates a valueless collection of something—at least that was Dundes’ intention.

In an interview, Mark Ferem, the author of Bathroom Graffiti, said that “Bathroom Graffiti is a common denominator; it celebrates what we have in common just as rituals do. It’s a cultural dynamic that binds us to everything human.” Oddly enough, the more we think about it… the more it kinda makes sense.