Articles and Stories

June 4, 2014

We mention it to every client: no matter how good you are, a second or third set of eyes helps find errors. Sometimes errors are so obvious that one wonders how they could have been missed.

Many clients still wonder why we offer a second or even a third review. Some people simply think that, when you know a language, you can translate anything and it will be error-free. “It should be right the first time”, is what we often hear.

But even a source text can have errors if not reviewed by a professional. Not everybody knows how to review; it takes a trained eye to detect such errors. Many people read through a text and will not notice subtle errors. How could an error such as that on the above billboard advertising candidates for local elections, be printed? ‘Kanditaten’, should be spelled like its corresponding word in English ‘candidates’, with two ‘ds’. At first glance it is easy to miss, I agree, but a second or third reviewer would have surely noticed it. That error, at least, gave comedians and journalist a lot of material to make fun of the politicians. And fun is something often not part of politics.

The response from the political party was that this poster was luckily only displayed once. For damage control, the corrected word will be pasted over it.

I trust that the originator of this billboard will, from now on, always use a professional reviewer.