Click to enlarge.

Now what good does that do? Made curious by isabo’s post, I am relieved to find out that the browser police at Translators’ Companion will make sure that my Internet experience is optimal!

It is no secret that there is little love between web developers and Internet Explorer, but why punish the user? Isn’t it the content that counts, even if some finer points of layout and design may degrade in IE? Kopfschüttel.

PC World published a list of the Worst Tech Products of All Times. I could think of a few myself, and one of them was actually among the top 5. But you may be surprised (or not) about the number 1 worst tech product: AOL.

Since America Online emerged from the belly of a BBS called Quantum “PC-Link” in 1989, users have suffered through awful software, inaccessible dial-up numbers, rapacious marketing, in-your-face advertising, questionable billing practices, inexcusably poor customer service, and enough spam to last a lifetime. And all the while, AOL remained more expensive than its major competitors.

amen auk qiþa izwis: und þatei usleiþiþ himins jah airþa, jota ains aiþþau ains striks ni usleiþiþ af witoda, unte allata wairþiþ.

Wednesday mornings at 8 am. It must have been Winter since it was dark outside. Smoky classroom, everybody tired. Retained stuff just long enough to fulfill requirement. Wow, where from did this just surface 37 years later?

This morning I booked my almost 20-year old daughter on a flight from Munich to Berlin on dba. One of the required fields in the online booking form was “Title” with a most bizarre pick-list (I believe Margaret Marks had a post about something like this not too long ago in her Transblawg):

Mr.
Mr. Dr.
Mr. Prof.
Mr. Prof. Dr.
Mrs.
Dr. Mrs.
Mrs. Prof.
Mrs. Prof. Dr.

Now, my daughter is no Mrs. and leaving the field blank was not possible. What were my choices? I think dba should seriously rework their English pick-list for the Title field. How about simply Mr, Mrs, Miss, Ms? If gender identification is the only purpose, how about F and M?

Meanwhile, back here in Missouri, when the state senate is not legislating “body waxing on or near the genitalia,” planning and zoning commissions seem to be eager to define what is or isn’t a family – as in the town of Black Jack.

Glad I don’t have to translate this.

Es lebe die (billige) Maschinenübersetzung. klicken Sie.

In my opinion, the best objection to doing free translation tests is that one has no time for that: if you already have enough work, doing a translation test for free is probably not the best investment of your time.

Couldn’t agree more with this assessment. If I have no work, I don’t mind doing samples of reasonable length. If you decide to do a test translation, heed this advice (found in the same post):

“Do not use Babelfish to do the test.”

I did my Friday shopping at the local Schnucks store – they have a reasonable fish counter. As always, the catfish was on special, but the salmon was not so expensive either. The label explained that it was “Atlantic Salmon” with Chile as the country of origin. I’m not an ichtyologist and perhaps “Atlantic Salmon” refers to the species irrespective of the ocean in which it is found, but my first thought was that Chile is not on the Atlantic!

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Useful wildcard searches for Word by Riccardo Schiaffino in About Translation.