The ineffable joy of being misunderstood.
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A couple of years ago when launching my crime novels in Spain, El Mundo referred to me as 'Agatha Christie con tacones'. This quote was later translated into English by one of my publishers and printed on some promotional material for Siren as 'Agatha Christie with balls'. Someone had mixed up tacones, the Spanish word for heels, with cojones , the expletive for testicles. An easy, and brilliant error.
But as we well know, we don't need language barriers to misunderstand each other. This year I was misquoted as saying my daughter is 'an inevitable joy'. That should have read ineffable joy, a joy that can't be expressed in words. 'Inevitable' does put rather a different spin on the joys of procreation. I blame my accent.
A beautiful error came up this week in a piece by the excellent Blanche Clark, books editor for The Herald Sun. We had a lovely and rather long phone interview (I can be pretty verbose with enough tea) about The Spider Goddess, resulting in the profile piece, 'Moss a Rolling Stone at Home'. But when I noticed the line, 'She has studied topics as diverse as psychology and sarcophagy and earned her PI licence', it gave me pause.
That should read psychology and psychopathy , the study of psychopaths, not sarcophagy - flesh eating. Though it must be said, I am fond of zombies.
Interestingly, sarcophagy comes from the Greek σαρξ sarx meaning 'flesh', and φαγειν phagein, 'to eat'. The related word, sarcophagus (a funeral receptacle for a corpse, usually carved or cut from stone) translates loosely as 'flesh eating stone', a reference to limestone coffins which were thought to decompose the flesh of corpses. 'Sarcophagy' and 'psychopathy' sound quite similar, especially down a phone line, and let's face it, it's just the sort of grim practice I might study for a novel. To clarify, though, I haven't yet studied sarcophagy, but as it happens I recently purchased a book on the subject by anthropologist Dr. Beth Conklin. I haven't pulled the wrapping off it yet. Perhaps I should take this as a sign to get reading.
A couple of years ago when launching my crime novels in Spain, El Mundo referred to me as 'Agatha Christie con tacones'. This quote was later translated into English by one of my publishers and printed on some promotional material for Siren as 'Agatha Christie with balls'. Someone had mixed up tacones, the Spanish word for heels, with cojones , the expletive for testicles. An easy, and brilliant error.
But as we well know, we don't need language barriers to misunderstand each other. This year I was misquoted as saying my daughter is 'an inevitable joy'. That should have read ineffable joy, a joy that can't be expressed in words. 'Inevitable' does put rather a different spin on the joys of procreation. I blame my accent.
A beautiful error came up this week in a piece by the excellent Blanche Clark, books editor for The Herald Sun. We had a lovely and rather long phone interview (I can be pretty verbose with enough tea) about The Spider Goddess, resulting in the profile piece, 'Moss a Rolling Stone at Home'. But when I noticed the line, 'She has studied topics as diverse as psychology and sarcophagy and earned her PI licence', it gave me pause.
That should read psychology and psychopathy , the study of psychopaths, not sarcophagy - flesh eating. Though it must be said, I am fond of zombies.
Interestingly, sarcophagy comes from the Greek σαρξ sarx meaning 'flesh', and φαγειν phagein, 'to eat'. The related word, sarcophagus (a funeral receptacle for a corpse, usually carved or cut from stone) translates loosely as 'flesh eating stone', a reference to limestone coffins which were thought to decompose the flesh of corpses. 'Sarcophagy' and 'psychopathy' sound quite similar, especially down a phone line, and let's face it, it's just the sort of grim practice I might study for a novel. To clarify, though, I haven't yet studied sarcophagy, but as it happens I recently purchased a book on the subject by anthropologist Dr. Beth Conklin. I haven't pulled the wrapping off it yet. Perhaps I should take this as a sign to get reading.
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