Re: Not Writing for Translation (was RE: Re(2): Number/Figure)

["Dick Margulis " <margulis -at- mail -dot- fiam -dot- net>]

Jim Shaeffer <jims -at- spsi -dot- com> wrote:
Jim, 

I think that sometimes people, in haste or in confusion, suggest those practices for ease of translation. But I think the better reason (and probably the one that is intended) is to aid comprehension _in English_ by those with less facility in the language than the writer has. This may include non-native speakers as well as native speakers with poor reading skills.

So the practices you are asking about may affect the way a non-native speaker effects a mental translation while reading the simplified English text, for example; but this does not bear directly on the issues that arise when a skilled human translator gets involved.

Dick

>> 
>This makes sense to me. However, does this imply that we ignore the 
>continual exhortations that we should write for ease of translation? 
>This advice appears again and again, leading to things like Simplified 
>English, lack of idiom, avoidance of prepositions, etc. ad nauseum. 
>



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