Swet Columns
June 1, 2012
Effective Onscreen Editing: New tools for an old profession, 2nd edition
Reviewed by Kay Vreeland
Effective onscreen editing: new tools for an old profession. 2nd edition. 2010. By Geoff Hart. Diaskeuasis Publishing, Pointe-Claire, Quebec. Printed version: 507 p. US$34 + shipping from Lulu ISBN 978-0-9783227-4-8; PDF version: 723 p. US$20 outside Canada ISBN 978-0-9783227-5-5
Originally reviewed for the SWET Newsletter at publication of the 1st edition... more
May 8, 2012
Our Story in Print: The SWET Newsletter 1 to 130
by Lynne E. Riggs
To mark the publication of the 130th issue of the SWET Newsletter, the last printed issue in its current format, and the transition to new means of information sharing in SWET, members of the Editorial Team contributed to a Q&A about how the Newsletter was made. This exchange adds to the record of an era... more
January 16, 2012
The Wordsmith’s Craft
by Lynne E. Riggs
Some may have seen the New Year’s TV program showing the tsuikidoki craftsman who takes a flat sheet of copper and over three days to a week beats it into a gracefully shaped teapot, complete with spout, using only a hammer, a high-piled rack of toriguchi forming tools, and the accumulated experience of two or three decades... more
January 5, 2012
From the Steerage • The Future of the SWET Newsletter
by Lynne E. Riggs
The SWET Newsletter is going to change. As announced in No. 128, the present Newsletter will continue through No. 130, to come probably in February or March. After that, the new incarnation of the Newsletter will appear sometime in 2012, as part of our redesigned website (details on which see below).
Preparations for these changes... more
December 15, 2011
Tidbits among the Triumphalism
Globish: How the English Language Became the World’s Language, by Robert McCrum. (New York: Penguin Books, 2010). ISBN 978-0-141-02710-4.
Reviewed by Charles De Wolf
Globish: How the English Language Became the World’s LanguageBack in the early 1980s, when the weekly magazines here in Japan were publishing stories on the often acrimonious debate concerning the origins of the Japanese language,... more
May 31, 2011
Thinking Forward: SWET Starts Its Fourth Decade
by Lynne E. Riggs
Only a few blocks away from the apartment building in Aoyama where, in November 1980, 100 writers, editors, translators, and others of their kind had gathered and founded SWET, 33 SWETers—young, not-so-young, and 30 years older—gathered at the Wesley Center on November 3, 2010 to celebrate the beginning of SWET’s fourth decade. Remarks by James Baxter, Janine... more