An electronic equivalent to The Translation Inquirer column

Nov 26 21:06 UTC 1998

Cynthia Keesan has been bugging me for some time to get into this conference,
and I am glad she did! Since April 1993 I have been the editor of the
Translation Inquirer column in the ATA Chronicle. ATA is the American
Translators Association. The column got started back in 1963, in the
pre-electronic era as we know it, and still exists now when such electronic
forums as FLEFO exist. But now, in 1998, the slow nature of the Translation
Inquirer is a sore point with a lot of people. Because of publishing schedules,
it can easily be four months between the time someone posts a query about a
language item until an answer is published. Despite this, the column is one of
the most popular, because people can store it in hard copy form and the
contributors to it often give very definitive answers, something you don't
always get if you place a query in CompuServe's FLEFO forum. So, just for
starters, let me post a query from my own experience as a free-lance translator
working (in this case) from Russian to English. The context was a draft law
about bioethics in the Russian Federation. The phrase that wasn't clear was "po
zhiznennym pokazaniyam" and a bit more of the sentence it was taken from was:
"...pobuzhdajushchih ili prinuzhdajushchih svoih chlenov k otkazu ot
medicinskoj pomoshchi PO ZHIZNENNYM POKAZANIYAM (vkljuchaja otkaz ot
perelivanija krovi) v otnoshenii sebja i svoih detei." I really like the idea
of quick responses, and this conference is a nice alternative for those who, as
Cynthia says, do not subscribe to CompuServe. Keep in mind that the above
inquiry is just a way of sampling what happens when queries are posted. I will
return again soon, and hope for good results! - J.C.D. P.S. Thanks, Cynthia,
for pushing me to do this.

response 2 of 2:

Nov 28 04:16 UTC 1998

John, it is nice to see you and to know that you have managed to use the
grex language conference.  Unfortunately I am the only other Russian
translator using it at the moment (I will see whether I can help you).  I
suggest that you email all the other Russian translators you can think of,
telling them exactly how to get to this conference, and include this item
number, and maybe we can get something started.    I have a query of my own
- OZhB on a transcript, osnovy bezopasnosti zhiznedeyatel'nosti, which in
English means 'principles of safety of vital activity (or active life, or
metabolic processes)'.  Could this be the new name for Health?  It comes just
before Physical Education.  Or might the Russians be learning about
burglarproofing their houses (safety could also be security)?.