When am I going to learn?

I have to get in the habit, when people ask me to accept an assignment, of asking whether they'll be supplying me with "glossaries." I seem to be noticing, lately, that nobody wants to mention glossaries or references until after I accept the work.

It's not that glossaries and reference documents are, in and of themselves, bad. One of my clients consistently sends glossaries and references that are real time-savers. The norm, however, is being on the receiving end of a two-column mishmash of information that contains everything but the kitchen sink (typically, for a document about kitchen sinks), and sets of "references" that having nothing to do with the assignment at hand.

As it turns out, the "glossary" I was sent for this most recent job consists, actually, of six "glossaries," two of which are big enough (13,000 and 16,000 words) to be called "dictionaries." All packaged in two Excel files.

Yum.

Moreover, not all of the entries are what you'd normally expect to find in a dictionary or a glossary. To wit, the following:

Kv - коэффициент пропускной способности клапана равный потоку воды через клапан (в м3/час) при перепаде давления через клапан 1 бар и температуре воды 5-40 0С. Сv = 1,16 Kv

Cv factor is the number of U.S. gallons per minute that will pass through a valve with a pressure drop of one (1) psi. This 'factor' is determined by physically counting the number of gallons that pass through a valve with one (1) psi applied pressure to the valve inlet and zero (0) pressure at the outlet. Cv is a mathematical constant. For a pressure drop other than one (1) psi, use the formula in answer number 10 below.

I mean, this is a nice explanation, but it's not a glossary entry. Nor does it really provide guidance to the translator as to what to do upon running across "Kv" in a text. Are you supposed to multiply whatever the value is by 1.16 and call the result "Cv"?

Ye gods.

A long time ago, when I worked full time at NASA, I successfully led an effort to create a compact bilingual "lexicon" of essential terms having to do with the ISS. In one meeting, though, one of the NASA managers expressed his excitement about the project by predicting the expansion of the Lexicon into a full fledged dictionary, so that eventually translators could be required to only write translations using the entries in this dictionary. (Presumably, document originators would also be required to confine themselves to the words in this dictionary.)

This might sound like an attractive idea if you don't know anything about writing (and most techies don't), and especially attractive if you don't know anything about translation (most people don't, even among those who are bilingual). I mean, imagine taking a Webster's Collegiate and handing it to a subordinate with the instruction: "Use only the words defined in this dictionary when writing your reports." At best, it will absolutely kill your subordinate's productivity; at worst,... well, at worst your subordinate will ignore your instruction.

Now lobotomize the dictionary, because you want to make it more "compact." The result will have huge conceptual holes in it. Delete "horse" and retain "hoarse," because the amateur you hired either doesn't realize there's a difference, doesn't care, is working under a really tight budget or schedule, or whatever.

And now have your subordinate try to write a piece about equestrianism.

Thank Providence for computers. It's going to take me a little while to consolidate these individual word lists into one, but it will save me time in the long run. I hope.

Cheers...

UPDATE: Well, after only two hours of mucking around, which included Word hanging twice, I have a shiny new 36-MB Word file with 35,441 "entries." I'm thinking this might form the kernel of a presentation at the ATA Conference in New York this October... And now, to work!

Followup...

One of the inevitable consequences of dumping umpteen megabytes of unvetted, unreviewed, and generally unreliable references on a translator can be illustrated by the following:

• If I had to translate the Russian term "специальные технические условия" without looking it up, I'd go for "special specifications." Indeed, the collocation "special specifications" shows up about 167,000 times if you search for the phrase on Google.
• The glossaries supplied to me for the assignment provide two additional alternatives: "project specific standard," and "project specific technical specifications."
• Looking at the documents also provided for my edification shows the term translated as "special technical specifications."

Now, if both the glossary and the documents showed that the end client for this assignment preferred the term "project specific standard," well, that's what a smart translator would use. But the result of the glossary lookup and document reference reveals that, pretty much, my first impression would've done the trick.

I only had to spend an extra couple of minutes to confirm that.

Multiply those couple of minutes times a few thousand instances, and you start to see what a enormous time sink such references can become.

The solution? Over the short term, confine lookups to terms that smell strongly of being unique. (How to tell? Use the feeling derived from the seat of the pants.)

In general, though, the only proper response is to realize that, in providing such a variegated collection of verbal vomitus, the client doesn't really use any kind of "standard terminology" at all.

Enough dawdling. Back to work!

Cheers...

Repair via intimidation...

Feht had called me during my visit to Mexico to ask if I could help with a computer problem - more specifically, a Word problem - that nobody seemed able to cope with. So today, I decided to drop by, chew the fat, and see what I could see.

I'm not exactly sure how I did it, but the problem was dispatched in almost as much time as it took to sit down at his computer. We then spoke of inflation hedges, places to visit, science fiction, and the benefits of replacing old carpet with tile, all accompanied by a fine meal that included shrimp and some excellent Madeira wine.

It was almost a shame to have to come back and dive back into the offshore oil-related translation, but I'm about where I ought to be, so I'm going to call it a night and go upstairs.

* * *Somehow, I managed to survive this week's LJ Idol poll, but the results for the subject I selected are pretty surprising. The last update in the community had to do with darkprism getting the "immunity" slot this week, which is a fine thing, but there's been nothing since. Perhaps tomorrow, I can take a little time and figure out what's been going on.

FWIW, thanks to everyone who voted for me!

Cheers...