Lexicoblog

The occasional ramblings of a freelance lexicographer

Friday, November 26, 2010

The joys of freelancing #5 ... pronking!

pronk verb (of a springbok or other antelope) leap in the air with an arched back and stiff legs, typically as a form of display or when threatened

This morning I was telling a fellow freelancer how much I enjoy the variety of work I can get involved in working for myself. After a rather hectic few months over the summer working on quite a challenging ELT project, I'm now ticking along with some more mundane lexicography work. Most of the job is fairly routine stuff, scanning through entries, checking for various picky little details that need changing, but rather than being 'boring', I'm finding it oddly calming. It's nice to have some straightforward, regular work with clear parameters, set hours and a simple brief for a change.

And because it's a native-speaker dictionary, there's the added bonus of coming across odd words that I've never heard before, one example the other day being 'pronk'! It made me laugh out loud, so I thought it was worth sharing ... now the challenge is to try and slip it into conversation!

Labels: , ,

1 Comments:

Blogger StephanieandKen said...

Ah, 'pronking'... Seriously, I do now realise I've heard this before. And did you know it comes from the Afrikaans to boast or show off? (...she said, pronkishly)

4:52 pm  

Post a Comment

<< Home