When is DWI the same as murder?

Not when someone is run over by a drunk driver, but maybe when that driver, after his arrests, signs a mistranslated waiver.

Translation errors raise legal issues

[...] The form, waiving his right to a lawyer, states that Segundo was charged with “a murder,” and his penalty was “1 anus in jail and a $ 1, 000 fine.”

(from the Arkansas Democrat Gazette)

Found in Translation

(From marketWIRE)

The San Francisco Center for the Book presents "Found in Translation," an interactive exhibition in the Center's gallery through July 21, 2006.

The exhibition presents a far-reaching look into both the process and implications of translation: each exhibit turns an idea on its head by viewing it from two or more sides (languages, cultures, genders, points of view)[...].
Using text from many languages and in a variety of media, the exhibit also provides a hands-on interaction with the artwork.

Interlude

I apologize for the the sparse posting since May (in fact, this is the first one in June).

I got very busy with some very large projects, and then I had to rush through with the preparatios for the most important event of the year in my second profession (click here if you are interested).

I have ideas for some new articles that I hope will be interesting. I hope to be able to start writing them in the next few days.

Article Done

With a lot of back and forth between Franco and I, we managed to trim it to slightly more than 3,000 words.

Final step is copyediting by an English native speaker (Franco's wife). Tomorrow we'll send it to Multilingual.

How To Argue with an Umpire

ESPN.com has a fairly funny piece about the problems of arguing with the World Baseball Classics umpires through a translator:

[OH SHOUTS INSULTING DESCRIPTIONS OF DAVIDSON'S ANCESTRY INTO HIS FACE]

TRANSLATOR: "Oh-san respectfully inquires how your family is doing, particularly your mother."

...then it continues for a while.

First "Translation Summit"

From yahoo! Finance:

This apparently has to do with providing translation to the government in the post 9/11 world.

If the press release is any indication, it should prove a bonanza for anybody who enjoys cliché-ridden content-free jargon, for example:

"...augment existing government translation capabilities" "...acting as a clearinghouse for facilitating interagency use of translators..."
"...mission..." "...think out of the Beltway box..."

That's on a par with the business claptrap we used to have to suffer through during the obligatory frequent meetings at the business software company I used to work for.

After reading that stuff I think I'll need a dose of Orwell's "Politics and the English Language" as an antidote.

Tags: translation events