Litany of the Elvish Editor

Three Tasks to the Russian Girls under the sky,
Seven for the IT guys in their halls of stone,
Nine for Freelancers due tomorrow,
One for the Side Kick in his dark thread

In the Land of Newpages where the Banners lie.

One Sheet to rule them all, One Sheet to find them,
One Sheet to bring them all and in the Casemates bind them
In the Land of Newpages where the Banners lie.

Parrucca e boccoli

 parrucca e i broccoli
 pannocchia e broccoli
 parrocchia e brontoli
 patente e libretto
 pannetto e bratente
 favorisca i broccumenti
pannocchi l'attestato

Le parentele quadre

le parentele quadre
la nonna graffa
i nipoti puntini
e noi punto e virgola
andiamo tutti in unteggiatura
a parte quel typo

PEARLJAM/BLACK/NERO

PEARLJAM/BLACK/NERO

Traduzione: Eva Canza

Sheets of empty canvas, untouched sheets of clay
Were laid spread out before me as her body once did.
All five horizons revolved around her soul
As the earth to the sun
Now the air I tasted and breathed has taken a turn

Pile di tele vuote e argilla mai toccata

Aperte e distese dove una volta era lei.   

I cinque orizzonti satelliti dell’anima sua

Come la terra del sole

Poi il sapore dell’aria che conoscevo cambiò

 
Ooh, and all I taught her was everything
Ooh, I know she gave me all that she wore
And now my bitter hands chafe beneath the clouds
Of what was everything.
Oh, the pictures have all been washed in black, tattooed everything...

E io le insegnai ogni cosa soltanto
E tutto quel che aveva, me lo diede

E ora tormento le mie mani amare sotto le nuvole

Di quel che resta ed era tutto.

Tutte le foto coperte da una colata d’inchiostro, annegate nel nero…

I take a walk outside
I'm surrounded by some kids at play
I can feel their laughter, so why do I sear?
Oh, and twisted thoughts that spin round my head
I'm spinning, oh, I'm spinning
How quick the sun can drop away

Fare una passeggiata,

Intorno i bambini che giocano

Li sento ridere, perché allora mi scosto

E mi prende alla testa un vortice di pensieri distorti

E tutto gira

Come in un attimo un sole scompare

And now my bitter hands cradle broken glass
Of what was everything
All the pictures have all been washed in black, tattooed everything...

E ora cullare con mani amare le schegge di vetro

Di quel che resta ed era tutto

Tutte le foto coperte da una colata d’inchiostro, annegate nel nero…

All the love gone bad turned my world to black
Tattooed all I see, all that I am, all I'll be... yeah...
Uh huh... uh huh... ooh...

Tutto quest amore rovinato ricopre di nero il mio mondo

È rimasto macchiato quello che vedo, che sono, che sarò

I know someday you'll have a beautiful life,
I know you'll be a sun in somebody else's sky, but why
Why, why can't it be, can't it be mine

Lo so che un giorno la tua vita sarà bellissima,

So che sarai un sole nel cielo di un altro, ma perché

Perché non il mio, perché non può essere il mio.

Riapparire per un amico

zorro chiede un link, ecco il link. buona fortuna!

Transloscope March-April

The horoscope for translators - 15 March - 15 April 2010


Aries
Stop getting angry because you cannot ctrl-z back in those excel cells and no, it is not absolutely sure that you checked already for double spaces in that 4,000-words doc: it just takes a sec, don't send it yet.


Taurus
Before you set on fire your internet provider's central building, go out and subscribe to the local gym and work out to realease the stress: in a prison cell the wi-fi is going to be even more unstable.


Gemini
Don't refuse that dentistry manual job: the fact that you specialize in gardening tools does not mean at all that you'll do bad: no-one will notice unless you loaf on the couch until it's two days from the deadline as usual.


Cancer
I know: it's not the right time, today it's so cloudy, you had a fight with your girlfriend, you don't know the true meaning of life. At least crawl out of the bed, get yourself some coffee and send that €3k invoice, ass.


Leo
In 2010, no-one is going to acknowledge the striking superiority of your work in accuracy, quickness and eloquence: now this may sound unfair to you, but perhaps you should rethink that €0.09 min rate, mate.


Virgo
You could fit those extra 2,500 words for Mon, work on Sun at the legal doc, and Sat night you can finish checking the agency's Nuclear_physics_TM. What you need, though, is to fit a dinner out, music and sex.


Libra
There's quiet no-one like you at fixing problems with CAT, organizing work and not snapping at coleagues, but this month keep in mind that they'd love you or hate you all the same if you were the floor's janitor.


Scorpio
If this month you find your job so boring, don't plunge into alcohol and sexual promiscuity to make it more lively, just try to think rationally to what a new job could be, that is excluding drug-dealing and blackmailing.


Sagittarius
You made clear that you don't need this job, it's this job that needs you. Your PM does not know it yet, though, so no jaw-dropping and eye-rolling at criticisms. And laser away that "Pro Translator" chest tattoo.


Capricorn
Last time you tried to take a break, you ended up organizing a heart-surgery translation 4-days intensive course on the beach in front of the resort: don't you realize you really are a navy-seal doing the wrong job?


Aquarius
Dude, I don't really know what to say, it's just the weird way you make it all work, just don't fiddle with suicidal thoughts for the human condition and dying whales and keep on going, whales will make it somehow.

Pisces
Probably this year you ought to specialize in some field. Probably you ought to become an in-house. Probably you should raise your rates. Probably you'll get some 20k words to do. What?! Oh, no, no, it's all up to you.

News - "Click Revolutionary kidnapped"

This is the last e-mail received by a translator from his hiding location in the Argentinian Ande.

Shortly after sending the message, the SDLX militias arrived and at present the hold him captive. The prisoner is thought to be a member of the Church of the Second Proofreading, the European offspring of the Hijos de la Inconsistency, a radical sect of translators who reject the use of CAT tools. There have not been further communications from the kidnappers and tonight authorities have scheduled an emergency meeting in Buenos Aires at the residence of Percent Iate, the New Guinea Consul's appointed expert and a free-range translator himself. Iate is the only acknowledged representative of Guinea Free-Range Translator Tribes, as they and their representative are defined in the UNCFTA 20 May 2001/Matters concerning the international recognition of the Free-Range Translators community, L. Grassman vs. New Guinean government pronouncement, p. 23-45. 

Here is the moving and frantic letter of a defender of translators, and yet a potential terrorist and member of a severely extremist sect. After enduring several weeks of fighting and hiding, apparently he was reached by the militias while he was writing this very mail. He is heavily altered as he writes, and seems to refer to past events, and more specifically to his conversion, a central topic in he Church of the Second Proofreading. Experts suspect that the victim might have been forced to use CAT and shocked with a 30k words batch. We do not know how did he send the email, from what device, nor it has been made public to whom it was sent.

"[missing text] Microsoft standard, always respected elsewhere, forces translators to use an unbearably long periphrasis: "to right-click" becomes "fare clic con il pulsante destro". 99.9% of italians who use a PC uses shorter expressions among which "fare clic destro". Please allow for this madness to end: readers will surely appreciate it as it is obnoxiously redundant. "To click" is academically "Fare clic", but EVERYONE say "Cliccare". But that is very radical for Italians and I still do not dare to push it forward. The subject is not futile at all as Italians have to do MAD things when there are character limits per cell or row; likewise, a persistent formality involving the use of impersonal syntax, infinitives and bureaucratic, cold approach to readers of manuals are all factors that slow down Italian translators, draining energy and time which should be for proof or research or a snack. Too much time is dedicated to fitting coiling subjects and verbs, making something complex of what once was straight-forward handbook english. If you become aware of such issues and test alternatives, you can have the chance not only to maximize your staff's production, but also to make them enjoy their work better, as we often get so frustrated by the awareness that such time-sucking syntax-juggling-for-the-sake-of-formality is utterly useless, as the reader would rather want a straight-forward, linear, clean Italian that explains things clearly and pragmatically [missing text] Last but absolutely not least, the pitch of an Italian manual turns out to be aloft, vanely robotic in the repetitions of blurb while unclear in the relevant spots. Definetely heavier, especially for IT manuals: IT guys worldwide know the English for their job and just scroll through manuals picking up what they need. I mean, no beginner will ever read an Oracle server manual. If he needs one, instead, he probably knows already how to use it and will just peek at the manual looking for a filepath or a command every now and then. SO there is a particularly generous time- and money-squandering attitude to still hold on to certain obsolete language structures, the virtuosity of which are no longer appreciated and barely perceived by the average reader of a  handbook for specialists and/or professionals, who wouldn't care less whether you address them Sir or buddy, as they just want brief, clear information. Manuals are things that people mostly do not use nor read. English manuals are friendly in comparison, sound like your neighbour is telling you how to install a program or to clean your chainsaw. American handbook English is blessed with carelessness for grammar, syntax; randomly, they's become you's, plurals turn singular and it's no scandal to anyone. Look at how they make us work: for each English 10 words, we have to use 20 to get the concept across. To some extent, it is unavoidable and a liguistic fact. But some of it is so obsolete that hit causes us to have troubles when we work on a text.

Why can't we write "cliccare", io clicco, doppio clicco, clicco col destro! Why on earth even for a young creation like the PC there already is a sclerotized standard which forces me -through its duly and unconcerned hangmen: the PMs, the proofreaders, at best in a hurry and just unaware- to write "fare clic", "fare clic con il pulsante destro". Just look at it, think you read: RIGHT-CLICK.

and translate: FARE CLIC CON IL PULSANTE DESTRO.

Does it feel right to you?

I am limiting my examples to the few which are easily understandable even by a reader with no cognition of Italian language. Not every country experiences the same socio-linguistic issues or does so at varying extents, but I am sure many translators share similar issues and face parallel obstacles with their own language.