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What are "gross words" and "net words"?
Thread poster: Diego Achío
Bernhard Sulzer
Bernhard Sulzer  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 06:13
English to German
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Agree Jul 17, 2015

Tom in London wrote:

Diego Achío wrote:

What are "Gross Words" and "Net Words" in translation?



"Gross Words" = all the words
"Net Words" = the words for which we're willing to pay you.


That would be my interpretation as well, with the emphasis on "those words that we define as net words."
But it never hurts to ask.

[Edited at 2015-07-17 18:45 GMT]
 
Samuel Murray
Samuel Murray  Identity Verified
Netherlands
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English to Afrikaans
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Bleating of a goat Jul 18, 2015

Radian Yazynin wrote:
Thus saying, the Hodja drew two coins from his pocket, rang them together loudly, put them back into his pocket, and sent the beggar and the innkeeper each on his own way.


The way I heard this story, the innkeeper was paid by the bleating of a goat that was beaten by a stick (the innkeeper demanded payment by goat, after a poor family with only one goat sat nearby smelling the food).
 
Samuel Murray
Samuel Murray  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 12:13
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
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Two possible meanings Jul 18, 2015

Diego Achío wrote:
They hired me becuase needed to proofread a file that according to my MemoQ has 18,000 words. ... In their word count it says the file has 18,000 Gross Words but only 15,000 are Net Words.


I agree with what has been said elsewhere in this thread: the "net word count" is either the unique word count (i.e. when repeating segments are excluded from the count) or it is a calculated word count that counts fuzzy matched segments in a different way.

To test it, make a copy of the MemoQ RTF file, delete all columns except for the source text column and the match percentage column, and then sort the table by the match percentage. Then delete various categories of segments until you get your approximate word count.

Or: ask the client what they mean
 
Jennifer Forbes
Jennifer Forbes  Identity Verified
Local time: 11:13
French to English
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In memoriam
Charge for proofreading by the hour Jul 18, 2015

This discussion clearly demonstrates why it's sensible to charge by the hour for proofreading, not by the word, and to explain to the client that it's impossible to know exactly how long the work will take until you've examined the translation in detail, which is, of course, what proofreading consists of.
Obviously, all the words (whether "gross" or "net") have to be read and checked, whether "repeated" or not. These "proofreading" dodges make me want to utter certain gross words ...
... See more
This discussion clearly demonstrates why it's sensible to charge by the hour for proofreading, not by the word, and to explain to the client that it's impossible to know exactly how long the work will take until you've examined the translation in detail, which is, of course, what proofreading consists of.
Obviously, all the words (whether "gross" or "net") have to be read and checked, whether "repeated" or not. These "proofreading" dodges make me want to utter certain gross words ...

[Edited at 2015-07-18 10:52 GMT] ▲ Collapse
 
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What are "gross words" and "net words"?







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