Language and atoms

Next time somebody tells me that Slovenia is such a small country and therefore Slovenian is a language not worth studying, I’ll have an anecdote ready to be told – about how I first panicked when reading an italian newspaper ("breaking news – nuclear alert in Slovenia – accident in a power plant" – you know, the Krško nuclear power plant is about 130 km away from home…) and then relaxed (immediately double-checking on Delo.si: it was a water leak from the refrigeration system, so they temporarily turned off the reactor).

No, it is not a matter of being or not being a supporter of nuclear power: the fact is, I am not a supporter of panic. I’m still reading news and checking each single word in order to assess the proper level of alert before going to sleep…

By the way: both newspapers were saying exactly the same things, just with a different choice of words.