A few changes to report around these parts. The first is that I have updated the FAQ for this blog. That section was actually the oldest part of the blog as it was first written in April 2010 and never changed since.

I also tweaked a few other minor things. One other rather big change is I am now opening up all blog posts to comments. I originally closed them in April 2011 because quite frankly they were driving me insane. Some people wanted to endlessly quibble over minor things. Others wanted to insult or attack fellow readers. And even with the “positive” comments, I barely had time to keep up. People expect me to read those things, you know!

Well after being moved by a few pieces that I’d read online, I decided to go ahead and open them back up. Sometimes I do make mistakes and it’s good when people correct me. Other times people have useful links to add or else want to join in a discussion instead of it just be me “holding the microphone” on any and all issues. We’ll see how it goes!

And while I certainly do make mistakes in Romanian, I work extremely hard to make sure that I make as few mistakes in English as possible. A great number of you are Romanians and many more of you are foreigners who live in Romania but for whom English is not your first language. A few more of you are Americans and thus are likely to be semi-literate at best.

Quite frankly, very, very few people write even tolerably well in English. I’ve seen glaring omissions and mistakes in even mainstream publications like The New York Times. Therefore for someone trying to flipping learn English, it can be rather tough. It’s even tougher when native speakers of English make mistakes.

In fact, here’s one from the horse’s ass herself:

The Romanian prime minister on Monday announced the immediate resignation of himself and his government, saying he wanted to protect the stability of the country.

Remember, this woman gets paid $90,000 a year to sit in Bucharest and write this shit. Clearly neither she nor her editors understand personal pronouns, something vitally important in all languages, including Romanian.

There are two ways this could’ve been written correctly:

1) announced his immediate resignation and that of his government;
2) announced the immediate resignation of he and his government

The second one is more pithy but they’re both equally valid.

“Himself” can only be used when he is doing something TO himself. He can wash himself. He can speak to himself. He can play with himself but he sure as hell cannot resign himself from a job.

Of course we know she can’t speak Romanian either so in this case I’ll pass on her “translation” of Antonescu saying that the Boc administration was “the most lying government”. Literally this means that it was the government that spent the most time lying down, which might actually be true :P

For those of you who care, the correct adjective form in English to describe something (or someone) that tells lies is mendacious. I do note that in the original Romanian, Antonescu saying “cel mai mincinos” is perfectly grammatically correct.

I wrote that FAQ yesterday but this is just one more good reason why Alison Mutler continues to remain on my shit list :)

PS – Yeah I’m still working on my Romanian blogroll. Feel free to drop me a comment if you’ve got any good suggestions!