Re: Translations and addresses

[Steven Gaghan <sgaghan12 -at- gmail -dot- com>]

I have worked on Manuals that included addresses for a US-based office and
one in the Netherlands. These manuals were translated into multiple
languages, and so to were the addresses.

On Tue, Jan 5, 2010 at 5:38 PM, Boudreaux, Madelyn (GE Healthcare,
consultant) <MadelynBoudreaux -at- ge -dot- com> wrote:

> I have to include 2 addresses in our documents, one in the US and one in
> France, and I don't know whether to ask the translators to translate
> these country names or leave them in English. I don't know enough about
> how to mail works to know if having, say, Chinese characters on a letter
> might make it faster or slower to reach its destination.
>
> My gut reaction is that it should be in the local language, since the
> local postal worker is going to just read that part and put the letter
> into the box marked "USA" or "France" and the rest of the address will
> be dealt with in English or French, as expected.
>
> My liver, however, is telling me that if the letter somehow ends up in
> the "Europe" bundle and gets to, let's say, Germany, the German postal
> worker will now have no clue where the letter is going, and it may be
> held up. So using a lingua franca like English (!) may make it more
> likely to get where it needs to go.
>
> "Ask Google," said my spleen! "Google knows everything." Alas, Google
> was not forthcoming, although it did suggest to me that spleens are
> often wrong.
>
> My brain whispered, "Let's ask TechWhirl. They will know better than
> your digestive organs."
>
> Sincerely,
> Madelyn "Tuesday? Whazzat?" Boudreaux
>
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