Fine. Google Translate isn't that great when it comes to seventeenth century Spanish literature. But could it be more useful in the world of business? Apparently not. To take just one example, the Spanish telecoms giant Telefónica's homepage has the following...
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Mad Men
There is an American TV series called "Mad Men", about advertising executives in 1960s New York. The title is a pun on "Madison Avenue" and "Advertising" (Ad Men). In US English, "mad" means "angry", whereas in the UK it only means "insane". So to British ears it's a...
3 mois de stage à QuickSilver Translations
Floors
Another curious dilemma: "28th floor" (USA). Should I translate it as "planta 28" (same number) or "planta 27" (equivalent floor in Europe). I would definitely translate "1st and 2nd floors" as "ground and first", but higher up, it feels like it's the number which...
Flow
Translators seem to have a huge problem with the word "flow", which is important in fire protection, and I find myself correcting it over and over again. The problem is distinguishing between flow as a phenomenon and rate of flow, which is a vector with a magnitude....
When the best translation means something completely different
I was having difficulty translating German Überwachungspotenzial for a detector system. "Monitoring potential" sounds so translationese, as does "potencial de vigilancia" in Spanish. Then I realised that in English we talk about "coverage", a quite different solution...
No long words
Some time back I wrote in my blog of a book in which there were no long words at all. And yet it did not feel at all strange to read it. In fact I asked a few Brits who are friends of mine if they felt it was in some way odd, and they all said it was just fine and...
William Safire’s Rules for Writers
(by William Safire) Verbs has to agree with their subjects. Prepositions are not words to end sentences with. And don't start a sentence with a conjunction. It is wrong to ever split an infinitive. Avoid cliches like the plague. (They're old hat.) Also, always avoid...