littleworkpage

 Oj! If it's not one thing it's another, and the last 24 hours have been the turn of the dreaded 'throwing up while simultaneously making fire from the rear end' bug, so beloved of nursery schools everywhere. You might be forgiven for thinking this is a blog about my illnesses and syndromes, but I assure you I'm only in it for the words. ;) So, here's another wordy thing for your delectation. Sorry if the picture seems a little uninspired, my head is still pounding from dehydration and - uuff, there I go again... Common Usage                                              1a) We usually eat lots of vegetables (carrots, peas, cabbage etc.). 2a) Several problems associated with Type I diseases (hair loss, dandruff etc.), are now fully treatable. 3a) …with later amen...

Punctuating dates and numbers is something we need to do in our translations nearly all the time. Even if it’s just a date at the top of a letter, it still needs to be done in the manner of the TT to make the translation complete. I see lots of little mistakes and bits of forgetfulness in this dept. very often, and it’s easy to understand why; you’ve been working like crazy to get the pismo to the ambassador perfectly right, and with a great sigh of relief you think ‘Great, three pages of hardcore diplomatic waffle done!’ and boom, off it goes with that tiny, almost insignificant date at the top left dressed in kropki instead of solidii. Or, in the effort to make sure that the phrasing in a particularly tricky, vaguely phrased umowa between two parties is translated in such a way that no one’s going to misinterpret it and start suing each other (and/or you), the punctuating marks in the grand sums of money being negotiated (that I could only dream of being a party to), go unchange...

Dates are unavoidable, unless you’re not showering and changing your pants regularly, or you already have a Mister or Mrs. Translator in your life. Wait a second, wrong blog. Dates are unavoidable, mostly because knowing the date is very handy and lots of people insist on putting them in their documents. As with most languagey things, different countries write dates in different ways, so in this, the first of our formatting and punctuation items, we’re going to look and see how they’re done in the English-speaking world. Commonly, many translators overlook small details like formatting of numbers and dates, and so I see a lot of this kind of thing in PL>EN translations: 1a     Warsaw, 26.09.2005r.           2a     London, 26 September 2005 3a     The next meeting will be held on 26 September, at 5pm. 4a        2011/02/28 5a     (Journal of Laws of 2007r. N...