I have many things to cram into this one posting so I will be brief on everything. The next posting will be fairly lengthy as well:

 1. 2009 Jelly Donut 5 worst translation errors

      I really enjoyed the Jackson Township – New Jersey newspaper’s “2009 Jelly Donut Awards”. You can find the whole article here, but for your enjoyment, I will post one of the award winners (I am hoping these awards keep on coming every year):“During a foreign policy meeting between American and Russian leaders in March, US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton presented Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov with a ?reset button,? representing the erasure of past tension between the two countries. But the English word ?reset? had been translated to the Russian ?peregruzka? ? meaning ?overcharged? or ?overloaded.? The photo op of the two politicians pressing the button lost its international significance ? and instead became a global joke thanks to the translation error”

 2. Pascal Casing vs Camel Casing

 A lot of the people I work with in localization tend to forget that in Greek we follow two rules: We do NOT follow the Pascal casing  and in the case of Camel casing we do NOT even translate the word(s) (in most cases Camel casing=concatenation, so stay away from the temptation of translation)

For those who do not remember which is which, here is the definition for both: “Pascal Casing convention capitalizes the first character of each word (including acronyms over two letters in length) as in the following examples: PropertyDescriptor, HtmlTag” & “Camel Casing convention capitalizes the first character of each word except the first word, as in the following examples: propertyDescriptor, ioStream, htmlTag” – Definition source: Brad Adam’s blog

3. Nominees for ADS Word of the Year (and Decade)

          The American Dialect Society selected the final nominees for Word of the Year (2009) and Word of the Decade (2000-09). The finalists for the word of the year are:

• -er A suffix used in such words as birther, someone who questions whether Obama was born in the United States; deather, someone who believes the government has death panels in its healthcare reform plan; Tenther, someone who believes the Federal government is mostly illegal because it usurps rights which belong to the States, in violation of the 10th Amendment; and truther, someone who doubts the official account of the 9/11 attacks.
• fail A noun or interjection describing something egregiously unsuccessful. Usually used as an interjection: ?FAIL!?
• H1N1 The virus that causes swine flu.
• public option A government-run healthcare program, desired by some to be part of the country?s healthcare reform

           The finalists for the word of the decade are:

• 9/11 The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Pronounced ?nine eleven.?
• blog A web site for publishing a chronological and ongoing series of related entries, especially when they are all by the same person(s) or on the same topic. Also a productive combining form: blogosphere, blogerati, milblog, blogola.
• google Verb meaning ?to search the Internet.? Generic form of the trademarked ?Google,? the world?s dominant Internet search engine.
• green Related to ecological or environmental conservation or protection. Also a productive combining form: greenwashing, green collar, etc.
• text Verb: to send a text message via a mobile phone. Noun: such a message.
• war on terror A global effort to prevent terror and terrorists.

           The final votes in all categories will have taken place by the time these lines are written (It’s supposed to take place on Friday January 8th at 5:30 pm in the Ruth Room of the Baltimore Hilton). You can read the whole PDF that sparked this commentary, by clicking on this link.

Personal note: Interesting how the words of the year are so influenced by neologisms and technology. I find it fascinating that technology terms jump from our computers to our everyday life. I only wish that was something as easily done for Greek as it is for English. It seems that in order for us to use a technology word we have to go through  thorough investigation in dictionaries and then go through the debate of whether we should simply add some a Greek suffix, or find a proper Greek word; in the latter case we have people dusting even their LJS or their Dimitrakos for suitable entries, like ancient Greeks should be the all powerful solution provider for something appropriate for terms like “Googling” or “Tweeting”; I mean, come on people, open up your horizons, listen to the everyday people using these terms, consult the subject matter experts and don’t go creating words on your own.

Coming up: 2010 Conferences list for translation, interpreting, writing, machine translation etc.