Controversial false typo: Spanish literary prize (Premio Planeta)

Good evening. Social networks have today echoed a typo in one of the headlines of spanish tv news Antena 3. The headline said: Hoy se folla el premio planeta (Today it fucks the Premio Planeta. In Spanish, the verb fallar [award] is similar to follar [fuck]). Later it was known that it was a fake. But if it had been real, it would have possibly been a typo and the word emerged from this change in a single letter it would have caused many jokes. What I'm going to do in this post is to analyze this (false) mistake.

As I said, it would have been a typo. When we write in a computer it is not difficult to press a key in place of another one, and even more if we write fast. But, why would have emerged this controversial word? The headlines have a very limited format, that is, in a very short space they should explain the news as clearly as possible. Therefore, if we talk about the result of a contest (in this case the spanish famous literary contest that brings the publisher Editorial Planeta), the word fallar is short and concise. In another context, it would have been possible to use synonymous (settle/solve the contest, decide the winner), but in a headline it would have been too long. In addition, the presenter says always more information.

In any case, although this hasn't been a mistake of the tv program, we must revise everything we write, and if we even have some mistakes, remember el que tiene boca se equivoca ;)

Translation mistakes (III): how to change the cartridges in the printer

Good morning. Today I'm going to show you a fragment of a flyer that explains how to change the cartridges in the printer. Because of the information that I deduce of the complete text, I think that it is a translation from French. French is the first language, in which everything is explained and, in case of doubts, it refers to a website with domain .fr.

Here I show the text:

As you can see, there are punctuation mistakes: (*Felicidades! because in Spanish we use both exclamation points, blank space between colon and the rest of the text, capital letter after a comma), grammatical errors (*es remanufacturado) where it would be better the passive voice, accentuation (*vació when the correct word here is vacío, *pagina, *esta) and bad expression in general.

Now, If you want to see my proposed correction into Spanish, click here.

Proofreading: how to win the “lottery”

The revision and correction are two steps that we mustn't forget after translating. Sometimes we have just enough time to give a fairly accurate translation (especially in examinations). But if we consider the revision time and keep us a few minutes to review a text, we can improve it a lot.

However, if we think a lot about a phrase, a word or a whole text, finally we see that everything is all right. Our brain gets used to read always the same information and that is why we don't realize some errors and typos. Therefore, as far as possible, it is recommended that another person revise our text. Someone who hasn't read it before and possibly will detect the mistakes easily.

On the occasion of Christmas, I leave here an image about the commercial of this year spanish Lottery Christmas. In the window of the coffee shop there is a little mistake, which although is camouflaged, some people have detected it.

*Elejir in spanish has a spelling mistake. The correct word is elegir, with g. Elegir means choose in english.

With this, I want you to remember the importance of the review not only after translation, but also to any writing. In many cases, a letter, an e-mail or message can be our cover letter and it can say a lot about us. Maybe we won't be rich with the revision of texts, but we can win trust and importance with another person (a client, someone who could give us work, someone we admire or just a stranger who treat cordially). Regardless of how a person expresses himself, there is always a degree of correction that is important to maintain.

Merry Christmas!