Neologisms in high finance

Gillian Tett's article entitled Beware the next financial blindspot, published in the Financial Times on November 22, gives a remarkable insight into the challenges and, on this occasion, the immense importance, of coining terms combining meaning and impact.

Ms Tett relates how Paul Tucker, now deputy governor of the Bank of England, tried to sound timely alarm bells about  systemic financial risks posed by what he initially called “Russian doll finance” or “vehicular finance”. It was not, however, until Paul McCulley, a senior Pimco official, coined the term “shadow banking” in 2007 that the concept, thanks partly to its new high-impact name, began to catch on.

Ms Tett does an excellent job explaining the details and the importance first of the concept, second of the term -- shadow banking -- combining meaning and impact.

Translators, who often have to come up with names for things "on the fly" usually earn no more for a well-coined high-impact term than they do for any other handful of words. And, as a rule, there's nothing much wrong with that. Sometimes, however, as Gillian's superb article demonstrates, a very great deal can hang on the success or failure of a handful of words.

Constructions that bring to mind the unspoken

Under the heading Thank you can be the hardest words, FT columnist Andrew Hill writes:
“ ... dispatched his chief financial officer, ..., with a brief thank-you – before pointing out how their working styles were not well matched. (Perhaps the clue was in his use of the phrase 'I want to thank Liz' – a construction that always suggests to me the unspoken addition ' . . . but I just can’t bring myself to do so'.)”

The expression  “a construction that always suggests to me the unspoken addition... ” is an excellent example of the sort of subtlety of language that should be available to 'into mother-tongue' translators but only very rarely to 'into L2' translators.

Found in translation

For information about Found in Translation by Nataly Kelly and Jost Zetzsche start here.

Writing in the American Translators Association Chronicle, Corinne McKay, sums the book up nicely:
"In superbly written, rigorously researched, and perfectly-sized segments, the authors have encapsulated the passion that all of us have for our work and its place in the world. [...] Found in Translation starts from a beautifully simple premise -- translation is everywhere -- and weaves a rich story of the ways in which languages truly do shape the world."

Highly recommended.

Moving text from Word to InDesign

A method to move text from Microsoft Word to Adobe InDesign by MacKey Composition:
Moving Text From Word to InDesign

The PostScript may, unfortunately, mean that the method no longer works with the latest versions of Word and InDesign.
PostScript
You will notice I don’t make mention of the newest version of Microsoft Word for Mac, Word 2008. The reason for this is Microsoft’s removal of Viual Basic for Applications (VBA) from Word 2008. VBA is a scripting language that allowed, among other things, the recording of your actions within Word into a Macro that, with the press of a button, ran those actions just as if you were going through them all over again. It’s very powerful and my method of using Word described above depends heavily on VBA. Thus, I never upgraded to Word 2008, as none of my Macros would have worked. Apparently Microsoft decided it wasn’t such a great idea to remove VBA from Word after all, and has promised its return in the next version of Word for Mac.

Jamie McKee added in a personal communication dated 30/10/2012:
"As for more information regarding the PostScript…with the release of Word 2011, VBA was put back in, so everything works just like it did with Word 2000 and Word 2004 for Mac. Word 2008 is the only oddball."

Smashing magazine

Some excerpts and links on layout, graphics and typography from the Smashing magazine site:
(Capitalising of Smashing headings changed by your truly from US convention to my preferred convention)

• Smashing magazine home page
• Typography guidelines and references

Here are carefully selected articles about typography and type design that have been published in Smashing Magazine over all the years.

• Mind your en and em dashes: typographic etiquette

An understanding of typographic etiquette separates the master designers from the novices. A well-trained designer can tell within moments of viewing a design whether its creator knows how to work with typography. Typographic details aren’t just inside jokes among designers. They have been built up from thousands of years of written language, and applying them holds in place long-established principles that enable typography to communicate with efficiency and beauty.

• Applying macrotypography for a more readable web page

Any application of typography can be divided into two arenas: micro and macro. Understanding the difference between the two is especially useful when crafting a reading experience, because it allows the designer to know when to focus on legibility and when to focus on readability.

Sea and Navy magazine

To see the English version of the special issue of Mer et Marine for Euronaval 2012, go here.

Style may have suffered due to pressure of work over the last few days to get this finished and on line in time, but on this particular occasion I want to raise a different issue, namely language- and culture-specific typography and layout.
The source is French written for a readership comprising naval industry professionals and the broader maritime and technical communities with sometimes less specific knowledge of naval defence, despite their keen interest.
The target version is written for a more tightly defined readership of naval defence professionals.

This is the first time in my long career that I have had the pleasure of such a good working relationship with the editor-in-chief and his graphic artist and the first time that constructive dialogue between us all has resulted in the adoption of some layout conventions specific to the English version, hence different from the French version. I refer specifically to white space between the paragraphs for improved reading comfort and the minimal capitalisation of heading and subheadings allowing the unambiguous use of military acronyms.

Please feel free to comment? Your feedback, positive or negative, will be most welcome.

Mer et Marine Euronaval 2012

22/10/2012

Le nouveau magazine Mer et Marine sort aujourd'hui

See here.

Deux extraits de la présentation :

C’est aujourd’hui, à l’occasion de l’ouverture du salon Euronaval, que parait l’édition 2012/2013 de notre nouveau magazine sur les forces navales militaires. Ce Hors Série de 132 pages présente les dernières nouveautés des industriels (bâtiments de surface, sous-marins, forces spéciales, drones, électronique, satellites, armement, propulsion, aéronautique…), fait le point sur les grands programmes européens et les contrats à l’export, propose un état de lieux des grandes marines du monde et revient sur les problématiques de sécurité maritime ainsi que les grands enjeux liés à la maîtrise des océans.

Nous tenons, enfin, à saluer Steve Dyson, qui a assuré la traduction anglaise du magazine (avec une version optimisée pour le lectorat anglo-saxon), afin que les lecteurs internationaux puissent également profiter de ce support unique de par la richesse de son contenu et de son iconographie. Un travail colossal puisqu’il a fallu transformer, en anglais technique, plus de 300.000 signes de textes sur des sujets particulièrement variés et souvent très pointus.

Version optimisée pour le lectorat anglo-saxon...
Ce commentaire fait référence à l'emploi des majuscules et miniscules dans les titres et sous-titres, également au blanc entre les paragraphes.

Vos commentaires seront les bienvenus.