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YOUR ENGLISH IS TOILET

Yesterday I received an email from the translation agency that sends me work with the subject "Client's complaint." Eager to find out more, I read on.


"I much admire the typing mistakes," the bolshy shagsack whined, I suspect sarcastically, "it should be shopping mall and not shopping centre, specially and not especially and industrialization and not industrialisation."


Teeth champing at an imaginary bit, I responded that the words in question were (and indeed are) correct in British English, though they were quite at liberty to change them to the stateside spelling if it were going to make them feel suitably made up - though why they'd want to is a mystery, as the text was a script to be used for narrating a video anyway.


This is a common practice among Brazilian professionals, I have found - sending disgraceful, disrespectful comments questioning peoples' English, just because they've been to Disney and feel buoyed by their managing to understand directions to the lavatory.


But the tale has a glorious conclusion. The whinging arse had written the word "traduziu" (translated) as "taduziu", which I pointed out in my concise yet workmanlike reply.


Churlish? Perhaps. Satisfying? Immensely. Childish? They started it.

Comments

Anonymous said…
If it makes you feel better, Gloria Steinem said that most writers write to say something about other people writing..... not necessarily nice things, though. :)

"The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shock-proof shit detector. This is the writer's radar and all great writers have had it".

Ernest Hemingway.
11 September 2008 at 15:53
Gadjo Dilo said…
Ooh, I see the problem: a little learning is a dangerous thing. If only you could wash these arses' brains clean of the little English they know and then start them off afresh on Shakespeare, Milton and co.
11 September 2008 at 23:28
M C Ward said…
Thanks, Waspette, that's certainly food for thought.

Gadjo, it isn't "arse" it's "ass"... ;-)
11 September 2008 at 23:35
The TEFL Tradesman said…
This comment has been removed by the author.
13 September 2008 at 07:24
The TEFL Tradesman said…
Yeh, and it should be "other people's English" - not " other peoples' English". That misplaced apostrophe tells me you are indeed a semi-literate troll - shame on you!!

Mind you, I did like the term "bolshy shagsack", which is a new collocation to me. Shall make great efforts to shoehorn it into my daily vocabulary at every opportunity.
13 September 2008 at 07:25
M C Ward said…
Tradesman, it should be easy to slip into dinner chit-chat at suitable parties.

As for apostrophes, they are bastards just there to trip up the innocent - though that wasn't one of the mistakes they picked up on, interestingly.
14 September 2008 at 09:05
No Good Boyo said…
Find their house then set fire to it. Sit outside, drinking ales. When they complain, say "My bad. Is that American enough for you?"

It's extreme, but they won't do it again.
15 September 2008 at 06:32
Troy said…
Just think, till that moment the crowning achievement of his life had been his perceived mastery of Microsoft Word spell check. It all came crashing down all around him when he realiZed that there was a button he hadn't seen, the US...UK language setting.
16 September 2008 at 13:29
entrailicus said…
My wife once translated a book marvellously from Turkish to English only for a complete muppet to make all the changes recommended by those squiggly microsoft lines that appear under certain words for no good reason. She was heartbroken, especially when they refused to remove her name from the book as the translator, but still got paid.
14 October 2008 at 07:55
M C Ward said…
Welcome entrailicus. Grab a Special Brew while you're here in the graveyard.

Same muppets, different languages. This happens a lot to me too, especially with the Portuguese word busca + infinitive, which should be translated as "seeks to", but which endless wiseguys change to "searches to", because Google uses the word "Busca" to mean (Internet) Search. I could go on...
14 October 2008 at 10:39
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