God I love the English translations of Asterix. And yes, they're the perfect example for why you need humans to actually understand the text and the purpose -- word-for-word translations simply do not work. See: how the initial translation failed, until translators adapted creatively:

Everything is fine

History Today is 75! A massive achievement for an independent magazine and one we're very proud of. Here's to the next 75!

For your collective delectation this holiday season: Quite possibly the silliest thing I've ever written (and definitely the most ridiculous graph I've ever made!) loreandordure.com/2025/12/16/j...

“Have Yourself A Merriam Little Christmas” Merriam, a career-oriented lexicographer from the city, returns to her small town for the holidays and meets Webster, a ruggedly handsome librarian, who shows her the true DEFINITION of Christmas.

A blast from my past - the Medieval Soldier database takes nearly 300,000 military service records from 1369-1453 and makes them available as a searchable database. An invaluable resource for understanding medieval warfare, society and the English medieval state. Learn more in the link. 🗃️

It’s December! And I have a piece in this month’s @historytoday.com on (you guessed it) Hortense Mancini’s life, and what I learned about her as I prepared the first ever edition of her letters, which is out with Iter Press later this month. (Lots of other great stuff in HT Dec issue too)

Good news.

Reading letters from the Princess Liselotte of Palantine, the German sister-in-law of Louis XIV, and it's wild because she had this super informal writing style that almost sounds like modern texts Like at one point she goes "wish to god my son didn't love holding chunks of bread like a peasant"

Happy St Katherine's Day to all scholars, librarians, and Katherines. May you win an argument against an annoying man today, in the true spirit of Katherine herself.

If anyone's interested in History Today (the magazine, rather than *waves hands* The Events), they do a three month trial of print and digital for £5 (five pounds). Means you get the physical magazine AND can go wild with their archive.

My book is £9.65 on Amazon UK over the next week in a 'Black Friday Week Sale', despite Black Friday being a shopping-binge day that follows another country's national holiday Anyway, my book is available for cheaper, it's a decent book, and you may like to own it www.amazon.co.uk/Why-Needs-hi...

And also a linguist who can explain how translating unknown languages actually works. (hint: you don't just start at the top and work through word-by-word)

Some high school students attended my “Living standards before the Black Death” lecture at @viuniversity.bsky.social yesterday. The lecture included a bit about coins, so I had an opportunity to show off some medieval silver pennies, including this one from King John’s reign (1199–1216).

In the past week I watched all three series of Blue Lights and now there is no more Blue Lights. What do I dooo??

A radio programme like the Shipping Forecast but it’s called Bin Day and it just reads out every single council in the country’s bin schedule

I asked about this, and one of our excellent librarians discovered that in fact AI summaries/"Research Assistant" can be switched off at the level of the library. Something to request. support.proquest.com/s/article/Eb...

The Greek χλωρός (chlorós) means both 'grass-green' and 'pale, pallid'. In Tyndale's translation, therefore, Death, the fourth Horseman of the Apocalypse, rides 'a grene horsse'. And apparently it's now just a thing in some translations that Death has a green horse.

Delighted to discover a trend for early modern religious figures to disguise their names by rearranging the syllables. William Tyndale became Daltin, Hugh Latimer became Merlat, and Nicholas Shaxton became Tonshax. And in his will Shaxton mentioned his son Thomas 'Dratsab' - a bastard.

Just found out about this amazing example of #manuscript #recycling . The whole manuscript is made up from the margins of an earlier liturgical manuscript, cut out and rearranged (hence the unusual format), the (mostly) blank margins then used to copy various magical texts in the mid 16th century.

Well this is awful news: tinyurl.com/yr65mjkx 'All modern language and music courses are being suspended for new students at the University of Nottingham.' Nottingham friends: please be assured that we will join you in protesting against this decision in the strongest possible terms. Solidarity.

Last night, Peers voted against Swift bricks: rejecting a simple, proven way to help one of our fastest declining birds recover. ❌ We share @hannahbournetaylor.bsky.social's disappointment & frustration. The vote came late, but with government refusing to back it, its fate was already sealed.

Really exciting book news out of Norway. And while the article focusses on the sealskin binding, I'm even more excited by the fact that these neumes are not square, which suggests a date well before 1200.

Academics in Assyria in the 7th c BC complain that admin is preventing them from doing research and teaching

Genuinely delighted to download a PhD thesis from a university repository where the author has neglected to remove the words "BITCH THIS IS YOUR THESIS" from the filename.

"I DON'T NEED YOU TO FUCKING REWRITE WHAT I'VE JUST WRITTEN!"

The November issue of History Today is in all good newsagents from today! Featuring #medieval Mongols, slavery in #AncientRome, #Elizabethan theatre, #SecondWorldWar air quality, and more. Find out what else is inside and where to get it at www.historytoday.com/magazine

Dr Clare Gerada has been appointed a crossbench peer in the House of Lords and is now a baroness — I’ve put together a short thread about her involvement in #MECFS. twitter-thread.com/t/1981309222...

absolute workhorse of a reaction image from over 100 years ago

In the past two days I've read about a 15th-century affair (the witness gave evidence of the bed frame creaking), a cache of letters smuggled in the false bottom of a basket of food, 'de greatest fooker in Augsbourgh' (1607), and the names Wolfgang Musculus, Tuntybaldus Breton and Tangy Breton.

Mind-numbing how many layers of history there can be to a single manuscript page: Syriac upper text (10th c.), Armenian undertext (pre-10th c.), Arabic material used for binding (11-12th c.?), Coptic foliation in the margin (date?), modern foliation at the bottom. Image: Leiden UL Or. 14236, link ⬇️

'View from Senate House Library' (2014) by Melissa Scott-Miller chrisbeetles.com/artwork/44604/view-from-senate-house-library

Someone really should write a book about the long history of people coming over here and not having an a-level in English

Suddenly learning languages is a desirable skill

jfc

My essay collection focused on ancient literature and translation will be available for pre-order in the UK in October.

irresistible new elder millennial bait just dropped

Is the OED broken again? I already have to use it in a private tab because for some reason the search doesn't work in a normal browser, and now it's not logging me in, even when it seems to accept my login details?

Today is a day when arts degrees are worthless, but the product of those degrees is so valuable it would kill an entire industry if they were made to pay for it.

Kemi Badenoch claiming Terry Pratchett as her favourite author is wild

solid language journalism here www.science.org/content/arti...

Please join me in congratulating Woman on her appointment

I've just made the longest to-read list

incredible thread from @masinger.bsky.social on a vintage tale of scented books bsky.app/profile/masi...

Sending this round again as I'd like to teach this poem! Irish Revival period specialists, do repost. Have heard about Easter Rising prisoners making Tara-style brooches out of spoons etc. could that be it? I still find "dish" a weird word for that though

just published on BBC website, an article on #Aethelstan inspired by David Woodman's new book (with a bit of commentary from Sarah Foot and er, me) #medievalsky www.bbc.co.uk/future/artic...

Today's cultural theory: I think 'Conclave' is basically a Merchant/Ivory film of the 'yes what is it, Sebastian, can't you see I'm arranging matches' variety and that's why we all loved it so much. The public longs for ARCHITECTURE and MIDDLE-AGED ACTORS in RESTRAINED AGONY.

We're excited to reveal the #WolfsonHistoryPrize 2025 shortlist, celebrating the finest historical non-fiction works from the past year. Congratulations to all the shortlisted authors! 👏📚 www.wolfsonhistoryprize.org.uk/2025-wolfson...

Interested in letter-writing in early medieval Britain? A three-year postdoc on @francescatinti.bsky.social’s and my project is now available. Apps close on 17th Oct. Let me know if you have any questions and please circulate! 🙂 jobs.kent.ac.uk/Vacancy.aspx...

Look what we have here then.