User:CWO

I discovered Wikipedia from searches for information in Google that repeatedly showed results in Wikipedia. After reading a number of articles and discovering what the nature of Wikipedia is, I realised that my own professional skills of proofreading, editing and, as a native speaker of English, translating from German into English and revising non-native English, and my interest in general knowledge could be of use to, and find a creative outlet in, Wikipedia. I am glad to be part of an online international community helping to disseminate knowledge throughout the world.

After about a year of being a registered user, I realised that some areas of Wikipedia technical formatting were going to take more time and effort to master than I felt like giving, and that the time I give to Wikipedia can be better used mostly as a WikiGnome using the skills mentioned above.

As a translator, I hold the standard British qualification, the Institute of Linguists Diploma in Translation (in my case, from German into English). However, I have not listed my name in the list of translators, as the process of producing a translated article now seems rather more technically complicated than I have the patience for. I remain willing, as I did in the case of translating the German Wikipedia article on Carinthian Slovenes into English, to produce a translation as a Word document for others to convert into an article in the English Wikipedia.

My interests in reading are mainly in European (which also includes English) and American literature, and in the minutiae of European culture to be found, for example, in the combination of information about history, geography, literature, ethnography, languages and politics that one finds in such books as Journey through Europe by John Hillaby, Time of Gifts, Beyond the Woods and the Water and The Broken Road by Patrick Leigh Fermor, Black Sea by Neal Ascherson, Europe by Norman Davies and Danube by Claudio Magris. From 1998 to 2004, I lived in the best-preserved Roman city north of the Alps, Trier (Germany). In 2009 I returned after 35 years to living in Wallasey (England), which is where I grew up. CWO updated 12:23, 14 February 2018 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Babel

enThis user is a native speaker of the English language.

de-4Dieser Benutzer hat Deutschkenntnisse auf muttersprachlichem Niveau.

fr-2Cet utilisateur peut contribuer avec un niveau intermédiaire en français.

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This user has been on Wikipedia for 18 years, 6 months and 30 days.

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This user is or was a student at the University of Sheffield.

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he or sheThis user considers the singular they to be substandard English usage.

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less & fewerThis user understands the difference between less & fewer.