They say it, but they don't mean it...

There are various things people say often enough, but which they really don't mean. Perhaps the poster child for this phenomenon is the bromide "if only so-and-so had <done this> instead of <that>," where "done this" might be: "asked me for money"; and "that" might be: "stolen it from me."

There are similar bromides in the business world, and in the translation industry in particular.

Uppermost in my mind right now is the instruction to "ensure the terminology used is consistent throughout the text," which I interpret to mean the terminology I'm using in the part of the document I'm working on is consistent with the terminology used elsewhere in the text.

This is a desirable goal—as is that of submitting completely error-free work (which is another one of those things that are said, but I digress...)—but when it turns out that the same term in the 30,000-word document I'm working on has been translated at least three different ways... well... it's really hard to take the instruction about consistency seriously.

Not to mention it sort of makes the job a lot easier to do.

Ahem.