Bay 12 Games Forum
Finally... => Life Advice => Topic started by: Sappho on October 20, 2009, 11:11:06 am
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I've been helping a guy to proofread some English translations of some technical documents (he's not a native speaker). He emailed me this question and I have absolutely no idea what the answer is. A Google search turned up nothing. Any of you guys happen to know what this is? It's just a fragment of text, there is no context to refer to:
could you pls help me specify what sort of a wire the --striking wire--is (see below)
Use a striking wire and an adhesive tape to label temporary bridges (electro-installations)
Is it a coloured one, --naked-- one, or simply an --extra-- wire????
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Use a striking wire and an adhesive tape to label temporary bridges (electro-installations)
Striking wire just seems to be a type of finer wire (it seems to have uses in everything from mannequins to watches)
A Coloured one - A wire which is encased in coloured plastic
A Naked one - A bare wire
An Extra Wire - Not sure. Maybe if you don't have the striking wire you use this one?
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naked wire is probably the most flexible.
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Hrm.
Sounds like it's talking about an extra wire to be used for the label, but it's hard to say with just that sentence.
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I've never heard of this, it could be regional.
there must be a context;
-what device is this for
-what's the application, is it a testing rig or a product to be assembled or an existing product someone is trying to rip off?
-what are you labelling
-is there other references to the temperary bridges
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No idea.. can't even see the context. Sounds rather poorly translated. I can't even understand what the question is.
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There is literally no context. This guy just gets random fragments of text like this to translate. In any case, I passed along the few guesses I have heard and he wrote back that he just left it in general terms, so it should be fine.
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There is literally no context. This guy just gets random fragments of text like this to translate.
God, that sucks. I mean, translation is hard enough as is, but to just get a bit out of a larger body to work with is a silly way to do it. Plus it implies multiple people are all translating bits of a document.
Suddenly some of those flaky instructions I've seen make more sense. At least this is some kind of label, rather than a working step.