response 26 of 63:

Dec 6 03:25 UTC 1998

"Judge at dog shows", or some other phrase like that, would probably be better
than Cynological Judge. I don't think Cynological is a word in common use.
"dresser" - all I can think of is "groomer", being as I can't imagine military
dogs wearing clothing. I may be wrong; I'm not much of a dog person.

response 28 of 63:

Dec 6 18:42 UTC 1998

Thanks, I will suggest that and hope the translation has not already gone to
the client.  A friend said mit Praedikat wines have had sugar added.

response 30 of 63:

Dec 9 02:14 UTC 1998

Got the correction made in time, thanks to all.  My latest job is about
different types of pumps, ugh!

response 32 of 63:

Feb 6 02:54 UTC 1999

Copied from Item 98:

Item #98 entered by John Decker (the Translation Inquirer)(vuff) on Thu Nov 26
16:06:50 1998
 An electronic equivalent to The Translation Inquirer column

 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.

 


Can anyone come up with the proper English for MUDr (MD?) and Dipl. Ing.
(Engineer with a diploma - B. S. ?).

response 34 of 63:

Feb 8 23:57 UTC 1999

I ran across mention of trulli (singular trullo?) as the round stone houses
with conical roofs built in Sicily.  There was no more context on the Hakkas.

response 36 of 63:

Feb 22 03:14 UTC 1999

I also found a Slovene translator in Canada.  She sent me a sample of her
work, consisting of a few pages of Slovene and the equivalent in English. 
It turns out to be a test translation into Slovene of something that I had
translated from the Slovene to the English.  I know of only three other people
in the US who translate from Slovene to English, small world.  Before she
wrote back I received a request for a translation into Slovene and referred
it to the people in Slovenia.
        Nobody seems to be interested in an online translators' conference.
The information on how to join was also published in the quarterly Slavic
translators' journal, along with how to join a mailing list.  I don't think
grex could handle too many people getting floods of email, most of which they
did not intend to read, so will skip that.  Oh well, I tried.  I also listed
grex, with backtalk instructions, on my new webpage (grex webpage).

response 38 of 63:

Feb 28 03:02 UTC 1999

Glad you asked.  See my webpage, there is a link to an article someone asked
me to write on "How I Became a Translator".  Basically, I liked languages and
sciences and majored first in sciences and then in languages and then needed
some way to support myself through grad school and then there were no teaching
jobs.  Not too many people know both Slovene and chemistry, but not too much
work in SLovene, I had to learn ten languages to stay in business, and for
the first five years or so I also painted houses, interior and exterior. 
Translators are all a pretty odd bunch who sort of drifted into the field,
You have to like puzzles, and working alone odd hours, and be able to learn
the basics of an unfamiliar subject fast.  (webpage is www.grex.org/~keesan)
This week a did a random list of Slovene words (some sort of psychological
evaluation), and several diplomas and transcripts, and a list of places
someoone worked, and now something about a medicinal plant.  The diplomas go
quickest and pay best but are boring.  The plant is interesting - valerian.
I use grex to read about the subject with lynx.

response 40 of 63:

Jul 1 00:03 UTC 1999

quango = quasi nongovernment(al) organization [1967] or quasi-autonomous
national government(al) organization [starting 1976] (source: on-line
OED, 2nd ed.).

response 42 of 63:

Jul 1 22:49 UTC 1999

In re 'remit' try one of these (examples omitted; source again is on-line
OED, 2nd ed.):

remit

remit rimi.t, older , sb. [f. the vb. ]

1. Remission, pardon. Chiefly Sc. Obs. rare.
2. A reference from one part of a book to another. Obs. rare-1.
3. a. The consignment or reference of a matter to some other person or
   authority for settlement, esp. in Law, the transfer of a case from
   one court or judge to another, or to a judicial nominee. Chiefly Sc.
   b. N.Z. An item submitted for consideration at a conference, etc. 
   c. A set of instructions, a brief.

Sound like 3c might be the one (the examples used it like 'your remit
is to do x'.  Here is one specific usage:

1977 Undercurrents June-July 12/3 "The answer lies simply in the fact
that the DHSS is a bureaucratic department which does not have the remit
to support publications other than official government documents."

So a quango's remit might be construed to be their raison d'etre.

Note also that the second (1976) version of quango originated in Britain
so is more likely to be the one for use in Ireland.  'quango' can also
be spelled 'QUANGO' and 'Quango'.

response 44 of 63:

Sep 5 22:33 UTC 1999

Hello everyone,
I^Rm translating into Polish a text explaining the rules for obtaining 
various construction-related permits from the Chicago Department of 
Buildings (did you know Chicago was the largest Polish city in the 
world? - it has more Poles than there are in Warsaw). I am looking for 
a kind and knowledgeable soul who could help me. Here are some things I 
don^Rt understand:

(1) ^DAre you constructing a garage with a minimum of 2 feet from 
interior lot lines on each side of for a wood frame garage?^T
What does ^Sinterior^T mean as applied to lot lines here?

(2) You need a permit for things that will encroach on the ^SPublic Way^T 
(public roads and sidewalks).  On the list of things that count as 
encroaching on the Public Way there are many obvious items, like 
dumpsters or flagpoles, but there are also a few phrases I don^Rt 
understand:
-slurry walls
-tie back systems
-fibre conduits
-switchback tracks
-sample basins
-lint basins

(3) From the Department of Water, you might also need a:
-Backflow Preventer Re-Tests Permit

If somebody can tell what even one of these things is, I will greatly 
appreciate it.

response 46 of 63:

Sep 6 15:47 UTC 1999

I did a web search for 'lint basin' - found nothing.  Sample basin - something
that I could not follow.  Try the water department first.  This sounds
industrial, not residential.  At the very worst you could translate 'basin
for samples', 'basin for lint' (but then what exactly is a basin?).

Backflow preventer brings to mind something that is required to be part of
or attached to all outside faucets to prevent water from flowing backwards
into them (in case you stick the hose in a bucket) so that dirty water will
not contaminate the public water supply, but these gadgets are
factory-pretested.

response 48 of 63:

Sep 14 20:12 UTC 1999

Could a 'lint basin' be the screen thing that people put over the end of their
dryer exhaust to keep lint from spewing out onto their lawn?