Cheesed Off
The rubbish crisis that appears to have made Naples infamous the world over, has now been joined by a mozzarella crisis. A Buffalo Mozzarella crisis, to be more precise. As you may have seen from stories in the press the world over, one of Italy’s more prized delicacies, this delicious cheese has become the subject of a health scare.
That the mozzarella crisis is a direct result of the trash trouble is highly likely. Years of dumping toxic waste in the countryside around Naples plus copious doses of political inaction and mismanagement have not helped either. Sooner or later it was inevitable that the toxins would enter the food chain. ‘Sooner’ has now arrived.
Burnt Midnight Oil
A little while back I was asked to prepare a short two day workshop on how to write a press release in English for the Media Relations master at the business school where I often find myself.
After burning copious amounts of that old midnight oil, I came up with such a course.
The first time this course was held was quite a nerve racking experience and I remember feeling much like an actor appearing on his first night. I really had no idea as to how my course would go down. Even though I was fairly sure that I had covered almost everything, and come up with a method that was thorough but, at the same time, quite straight forward. I had even come up with a way, I hoped, of getting the most out of a large group of people with widely differing levels of knowledge of English.
At the end of the day though, I had never really done anything as extensive as this. So how did the course go? Read more
A Sneak Preview - Businessisin
This is a new site that I’m working on - Businessisin…Italy. The title is self explanatory, I feel.
Basically, I want to use this site to show off Italian businesses, not the well known ones, and business people, especially young Italians, as well as providing advice on how and where to do business in Italy, and to create some form of networking between businesses abroad and Italian businesses.
And to help others understand what is going on here, I’m going to be running a ‘Press Clippings’ section which will be very brief summaries of Italian business news stories from Italian sites and newspapers, the aim of which is to give non-Italian business people more of an insight into Italy, how it works, and the kind of opportunities it may present.
On the other hand Blog from Italy, where you are now, attempts in part, and in a small way, to show off the end product, whereas Businessisin will try to show off the businesses behind the products, in an attempt to generate more business, investment, profit, and, hopefully, employment.
The site is live, but I have not yet launched it, so to speak. And my ‘business writing style certainly needs more work. But I’d like a little feedback and if you have any suggestions, I’m all ears.
If you’d like to pop over there, then feel free. Very much work in progress, and my ideas are only just starting to take shape.
Once the hectic period I’m going through at the moment calms down a bit, I’ll be dedicating more time to the site.
Italian Paragraphs
I don’t know if others have noticed this, and I imagine they have, but many Italian writers construct some of the longest paragraphs I have ever seen. These paragraphs seemingly never ending walls of text tend to put me off reading Italian newspapers and books.
As I understand from my own research into writing skills, psychologists who have studied the way in which Americans and Britons write, have determined that written texts are more readable and easier to understand if they are short. By short I mean around five or so sentences long or around 75 words.
I know at times I write paragraphs which stretch acceptable limits, but I do try to keep my paragraphs quite short. I also leave a line between each paragraph, partially because I think this makes things look a little better, and partially because I have read that this improves readability.
Now what I would like to hear is whether Italians would prefer to see shortish paragraphs and a good amount of space, or whether they prefer paragraphs which are longer than this post.
I have heard it said that Italians are not the world’s greatest readers, and I wonder if the block like walls of text put many Italians off.
Judge for yourselves. Here is the post I have just written, without paragraphs and spaces. See which you prefer:
I don’t know if others have noticed this, and I imagine they have, but many Italian writers construct some of the longest paragraphs I have ever seen. These paragraphs seemingly never ending walls of text tend to put me off reading Italian newspapers and books. As I understand from my own research into writing skills, psychologists who have studied the way in which Americans and Britons write, have determined that written texts are more readable and easier to understand if they are short. By short I mean around five or so sentences long or around 75 words. I know at times I write paragraphs which stretch acceptable limits, but I do try to keep my paragraphs quite short. I also leave a line between each paragraph, partially because I think this makes things look a little better, and partially because I have read that this improves readability. Now what I would like to hear is whether Italians would prefer to see shortish paragraphs and a good amount of space, or whether they prefer paragraphs which are longer than this post. I have heard it said that Italians are not the world’s greatest readers, and I wonder if the block like walls of text put many Italians off.
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