Remember that ‘personal’ often has overtones of private, intimate and secret and not merely ‘related to the individual’.
Category Archives: Mistranslations
Hernia
Scientifically, it means an internal body part protruding where it shouldn’t. In everyday speech, however, Dutch uses it for a back problem and English for an abdominal one.
Beamer for Christmas?
My brother-in-law was astonished when I said I was getting Clare a beamer for Christmas. An SUV or a soft-top?
Psychic distress
Anything to do with the psyche – the human mind or soul, after the goddess of the same name – has to be referred to as “psychological” or “mental”, not “psychic”.
Relations and relationships
Dutch uses the same word for both (relatie), but the meanings in English are distinctly different.
Cowboys and Indonesians
Unusually for European languages, Dutch has retained the word “Indisch” as the demonym for the former East Indies and people are always mistranslating it as “Indian”.
Three contronyms
A word that takes diametrically opposed meanings, depending on the context, can’t be translated with a one-size-fits-all solution into a language where different words are used for those meanings.
Quartermaster
A quartermaster is a low or mid-level military administrator responsible for supplies and equipment, not some kind of high-level official trailblazer for projects.
Power, force and strength
Three concepts with distinct, interrelated meanings in physics. And lines that are blurred in everyday usage in differing ways in the different languages. Tricky.
Trajectories are for ballistics
The curve taken under gravity by a thrown object, or a metaphorical upward progression such as a career. Not a generic synonym for a route or pathway.
