Once again, these are not translators Thread poster: Samuel Murray
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Samuel Murray 
Netherlands
Local time: 16:58
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
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Again, ProZ.com is asking me to "give translator feedback" on agencies.
I suspect these agencies have "translator" profiles at ProZ.com, which is why ProZ.com thinks that they are "translators". All of the options that I can choose when rating them, relate to them being individual human freelance translators, and they are... agencies. How about this: add an item "This is a translation agency", which drops down a box with similar questions, but related to agencies.
I don't mind giving feedback about these agencies -- some of them send me a lot of work and their PMs are quite professional. But I can't give them feedback as if they are translators.
We can get away with calling agencies "service providers", I guess, so I can tick the box at "Yes, I would work again with this service provider" in good faith, but I neither outsourced to them nor did I work with them as a colleague (calling a client a "colleague" is a bit of a stretch), and I can't submit this form without selecting one of the first three options.
Look, if you don't want to create custom questions for agencies, then how about this: add a 4th option "I have worked with this service provider in some other way" or "This service provider has outsourced work to me" (for what an agency does to translators can, with a bit of imagination, be called "outsourcing").
And change "him/her" to "they", because the agency is not a "him/her". All three the agencies that I'm asked to rate here have multiple PMs and an accounting department, so they're not kitchen table agencies. There is no "him/her" here.
[Edited at 2023-02-14 06:37 GMT]
| | | | Nikolay Novitskiy
Russian Federation
Local time: 20:58
Member (2018)
English to Russian
| And change "him/her" to "they" | Feb 14, 2023 |
Samuel Murray wrote:
And change "him/her" to "they", because the agency is not a "him/her".
That's quite an interesting question of what pronoun to use. I think it depends on how does the agency identify itself! We can use:
- "it/its/its" if it identifies itself as a company
- "we/us/ours" if it identifies itself as a collective mind with individualities merged
- "he/him/his" if it identifies itself as a male person
- "she/her/hers" if it identifies itself as a female person
- "they/them/theirs" if it identifies itself as a group of people
- "zrlta'n/zrlta'r/zrlta't" if it identifies itself as zrlta'z
etc...
| | | | Samuel Murray
Netherlands
Local time: 16:58
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER | The English "they" | Feb 14, 2023 |
Nikolay Novitskiy wrote:
- "it/its/its" if it identifies itself as a company
- "they/them/theirs" if it identifies itself as a group of people
In English, "they" can be used to refer to a single entity such as a company or even an individual person. It's called the "singular they". Purists dislike it, but it's very, very common in modern formal English.
| | | | | Missed the joke | Feb 14, 2023 |
Samuel Murray wrote:
In English, "they" can be used to refer to a single entity such as a company or even an individual person. It's called the "singular they". Purists dislike it, but it's very, very common in modern formal English.
Indeed, but I’m sure Nikolay is well aware of that. It seems clear to me that it was intended as a joke!
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Jan Truper
Germany
Local time: 16:58
English to German
Samuel Murray wrote:
It's called the "singular they". Purists dislike it, but it's very, very common in modern formal English.
English to German translators hate it
[Edited at 2023-02-15 12:48 GMT]
| | | | Mr. Satan (X)
English to Indonesian
Jan Truper wrote:
Samuel Murray wrote:
It's called the "singular they". Purists dislike it
German translators hate it
I fear that history may repeat itself again.
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