Monday, March 23, 2009

xkcd imitates life

1. I always have these dreams. (Click on the link - I tried to embed but it's too wide.)

I've even blogged about them. They always take place in high school. And I always find myself thinking "Hey, wait, don't I have enough credits to graduate? And haven't I in fact been to university? And I seem to remember something about an apartment in Toronto?" just like in the comic. The odd thing is I've never had a translation dream. I'm coming up on my sixth anniversary in my job (and spent three years in translation school before that). I spent five years in high school. And yet I keep dreaming about high school and have never dreamed about translation.

Speaking of translation...

2. Some of my co-workers have actually had this happen:



The source text says "pun not intended" or similar. The translator goes crazy trying to figure out what the pun is. Finally the translator swallows their pride and goes to a mother-tongue speaker of the source language, only to find that there is no pun whatsoever. Our goal, which no one has yet succeeded in fulfilling unless they've neglected to brag about it, is to insert a bona fide pun in the translation. If anyone succeeds in doing so, pun jar fees will be waived.

No comments: