don't confuse the narrator

same difference

A couple of weeks ago I was asked to quote for a translation project that entailed translating a big corporate website from Spanish to English.

The potential job was passed on by a friend, so I didn’t know the client and they didn’t know me. We exchanged a few emails, in which I hope I came across as professional and experienced, and then I sent them a price per word (they’d agreed they could provide text documents) and a time frame.

I never heard back from them, so I suspect they chose a cheaper option with a shorter time estimate.
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poetry, prose and politics

In a piece on the BBC website Magazine section, the historian David Cannadine talks about ties. The article starts:

The former governor of the state of New York, Mario Cuomo, once observed that in a modern democracy “you campaign in poetry but you govern in prose”.

which certainly caught my attention.

But Cannadine then makes a strange leap to connect this to the subject of ties:

Translated from speech to dress, […] suggests that you campaign wearing an open neck shirt, but govern wearing a tie.

To press the flesh and get yourself elected, it seems essential to dress down and appear casual, like ordinary voters, rather than be buttoned up or formal.

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gender agendas

I’ve mentioned to several people recently that I don’t seem to have many ideas for new writing, and although I know it’s only a small sample, their reactions seem to clearly support the idea that men and women use language for different purposes.

From the women there have been vague sympathetic noises, general clichéd reassurances that the tide’s bound to turn, and reminders that it’s not the first time I’ve complained of lack of ideas.

The men, though, have offered ‘solutions’.
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leap of logic

I don’t think there will be any daffodils in bloom for St David’s day tomorrow, but the apricot trees have suddenly burst into blossom. Of course, it’s far too early for them, but since we’ve had nothing but sunshine for weeks now, it’s hardly surprising that everything’s confused.

The river is as low as it usually is in summer and even when we get a frost, it seems to thaw to dryness and leaves the earth scorched rather than moist.

The locals have a theory about the drought: they say it’s because 2012 is bisiesto – a leap year.

I’m really not sure about the logic there, but who am I to come between el pueblo and their folclore? (Yes, that really is a Spanish word and it means exactly what you’d expect it to if you substitute a ‘k’ for the ‘c’.)

Personally, I was hoping bisiesto meant I’d get twice as many siestas as usual this year.

time for thought

I’m currently working on a translation project to produce an English version of the voice-over script for a dance video. The original is not precisely poetry, but it’s certainly not standard prose and it does depend on multiple meanings and interpretations.

This is the sort of project I love, as it offers all sorts of creative potential – as long as the person you’re working with doesn’t demand that the translation say exactly the same as the original.

To begin with, there’s no way I can find a word in English like the Spanish word tiempo, which can be used for ‘verb tense’, ‘weather’, ‘time’ and ‘time signature’, plus a few other unrelated concepts.

This, of course, is one reason it’s fun being a ‘creative translator’. It probably also accounts for the fact that my thesaurus is falling apart.