Thursday, June 28, 2018

WORK: Separated by a common language

My most recent project is right up my alley: I'm translating a "British English" book about undergraduate research skills into "American English." It's not just a matter of changing "analyse" to "analyze" and "behaviour" to "behavior." I also have to be on the lookout for "flatmates," "tutor," "straightaway," and "tick" (in the sense of a check mark). British English also uses single quote marks where we would use two, and they put commas and periods ("full stops") outside of the quote marks rather than the reverse. So far the authors have been pretty good about avoiding "one" and "oneself," as the text is supposed to be written in a colloquial style.

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