6. Overkill
No 6 in a series of articles about translating from Serbian (and other languages) into English
It’s funny how inflation can apply not only to currencies, but also to words. Sometimes, a word seems to offer insufficient emphasis, and a new one is made to correct this. Then people learn the new word, and use it where the old one could have been just as good, or better.
Here’s a common one among translators: ‘pre-condition’. Now, ‘pre-’ comes from the Latin for ‘before’, so it means it has to exist before something else can happen. But then so do all conditions, don’t they? That’s what this word means, so it’s a piece of double-speak. I suggest the word ‘condition’ is usually better, unless there is doubt. I’m not sure how that would arise or what the difference in nuance really is, and I find the ‘pre-‘ bit a little pretentious. If anyone can explain its proper use I’d be grateful.
‘Pro-active’ is another. It used to be called ‘active’, as opposed to ‘passive’. What the ‘pro-‘ adds I’m not quite sure, I suppose it just means ‘very’. Make sure you really want to emphasize this if you use this word rather than ‘active’, otherwise it sounds a bit tacky. Passive – passivity; active – activity; I wonder what a pro-activity would be?
If anyone has other examples, I’d love to hear them. Otherwise, let’s move on to real words that are just over-used. Certain words are to be found everywhere in the kind of official document or press release that we often have to deal with. It seems to me that representatives of this or that are always implementing a significant process of certain activities, rather than people just doing it. These words are fine used in the right way and not too often, but:...
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