In One craft conquers air, sea and subsea domains, MaritimeJournal technical journalist Jake Frith writes:
VICTA is focused primarily on the defence market and one of her hallmarks is the inconspicuous insertion and extraction of ‘task-oriented force packages’ (ED: military euphemism of the month) at range. Extending that range by including airborne delivery offers further flexibility and so enhances the potential of the craft.
The comment 'military euphemism of the month' highlights one technical journal's view of a technical term used by other technical journalists working in an allied domain. Portions of the maritime domain and industry are, of course, close to and even overlap with portions of the military domain and industries.
Like other journalists and writers, technical journalists read each other's work, monitor, and occasionally, as here, comment publicly on each other's terminology. Needless to say, translators of technical journalism should follow suit.
The 'euphemism of the month' may be intended as cheeky or possibly even cutting, but I think it is also fair to say that technical journalists in all domains are quick to pick up on all types of new terminology, including euphemisms, acronyms, and the like, not to mention constantly changing comparisons and metaphors that arise, then become fashionable before either disappearing or coming to be seen as clichés. Technical journalists track all this in their domains and in the language or languages in which they write professionally. Their translators need to constantly do the same in both their source and target languages; the latter even more closely than the former.
