A reminder to writers

Mon May 13 17:32:50 UTC 2013

On May 13, 2013, at 11:10 AM, Ben Cotton <bcotton at fedoraproject.org> wrote:

> On Mon, May 13, 2013 at 12:00 PM, Chris Murphy <lists at colorremedies.com> wrote:
>> The examples are idioms, they aren't meant to be taken so literally as to connote "vision required".
> 
> That may be, but that's also a valid reason to not use them. Idioms
> are hard to properly translate.

The goal should be to avoid uncommon, obscure idioms. Common expressions, like the examples, have equivalents the translators already know. If they don't, they'll appreciate learning them because their proper translation is a basic requirement of good translation.

Verbosity is what makes translation difficult. I'd emphasize concision as an aid to translators, before dropping idioms.

Chris Murphy