yndigo

An artist renders an image. A cook renders fat from a duck. A court renders a judgment. A translator renders a translation?

I’ve always said “produce” a translation. Rather mechanical I know and a testament to my stiffly commercial milieu. The blog transubstantiation has a thought-provoking post asking readers to choose one definition from a first list of four words, and one from a second, and then, by melding and contrasting these terms, to attempt to deepen their sense of just what translation is. The ensuing discussion is great.

Render is far more formal in English than the everyday rendre in French. I won’t for example be rendering anything unto anybody anytime soon the way a French school kid commonly has to rendre his friend’s stylo back.

This definition of render means “to give back.” As opposed to what the cook does, which is “to extract.” On the other hand, who knows? The cook — or the translator for that matter — may not play such an active role here. Maybe he’s just the facilitator. Maybe the sense of verb render has broadened over the years to also mean “to cause to give back.” For it is the duck that “gives back” its fat, and just maybe the source text that “gives back” its meaning. Kind of like the block of marble that needed Rodin only to divine and release the scupture within.

On a much lighter note

Rendering either as a collocation or synonym of translation must carry through to other languages too. While I was clicking through translation blog links, I stumbled upon one of the — unintentionally — funniest posts I’ve seen in a while. It was a list of “Rendering blogs” borrowed from Lexiophiles’ Top 100 language blogs, and then re-rendered either by a machine or a new English learner.

Yndigo was included, as a “blog on version with both penetrations and insights.” I suppose “concealments” is only natural with that type of content. But hey, if it gets us more traffic, I’m all for it!

About Translation has always been good about sharing tidings and thoughts about professional version, yes siree!

Jill at Musings from an overworked translator, although the link to her page is missing, will be happy to know that her reflexions life on both the main industry and the rendering industry have not gone unnoticed.

The parole exportée, whether “keeping it up,” or “maintaining it upwards” will be uplifted by the recognition, I’m sure. (Maybe she could use some concealments too)

Now, I was certainly aware that Corinne at Thoughts on Translation was an expert on the rendering industry, but nobody told me she was “going a transcriber.” You go, Corinne!

And let’s not forget, under “near miss,” the Masked Translator who seems to be moonlighting as a masked transcriber now too. Last but not least, Translator’s Musings whose “nigh missies and the tips for all those postulate versions from English to French” are always welcome to francophiles like me.

Of course the “Dire Missies” didn’t make the cut, but what a great name for a band, no?