Musings from an overworked translator

The wrong translation July 31, 2024

I subscribe to Ask a Manager, because, even though I have never worked as an in-house employee or manager, a lot of the skills and topics she advises on can be applicable to life as a freelancer (and to reaffirm the freedom we are afforded by not working in a company). She usually offers advice to her readers, and the comments are often quite interesting. The best of the best are culled and shared in occasional posts. This week has been focusing on incidents involving mortification and how some readers have mortified themselves at work. One from today’s post hit me as particularly funny – because I (and I am sure many of you) have been there. Feel free to share your funny stories in the comments here on the blog 🙂

11. The wrong translation

I (an American) was working in Germany. One of the Germans I worked with told me about a local insect pest that fell from trees, and the home remedy they used to drive it away. Their home remedy was to use the seeds from a plant that repelled the pest. Rub ’em on your nose and you’ll apparently ward off the bugs from dropping on you, presumably due to some chemical, like a seed oil, that’s not obvious or offensive to humans.

This German colleague did not know that there are some subtleties to terms for various gametes in English. So he offered to rub sperm on my nose for me, to ward off local bugs.

And then we had a very awkward chat to sort out what he really meant.