Translator's Jargon Glossary

Henrik Pipoyan wrote:

I don't know if this has been discussed before, but I think it's high time we created a translator's jargon glossary. Below are some of my suggestions. Any contribution will be appreciated.

911-client - a client who always rushes and always sends urgent, same-day or same-hour projects.
black board - the list of outsourcers with a Blue Board rating below 3.
blackhole - one of those translation agencies, where your invoices always get lost in the accounting, and you have to remind them multiple times and resend the invoices.
bodybuilder - a translation agency that creates huge translator databases but never or almost never has a job.
bottled text - a translation that requires keeping pages, lines or even word lengths the same as in the original, e.g., forms, cell-phone messages, etc.
bouncing project - a translation project in which the client keeps asking you to change a word or two in the translation, add or remove something, because the end client constantly makes changes in the original.
but-payer - an agency that eventually pays you, but you have to remind them a hundred times.
darning - updating of a previously translated text by another translator.
downgrading - editing of a translation that results in an inferior quality.
potential outsourcer - someone who keeps posting potential jobs for potential projects, but never has a real job.
instinctive editing - editing by a person who doesn't know the rules of the language and relies merely on his/her native feeling.
miscorrection - a correction that changes the correct word or phrase and suggests a wrong one.
package translation - translation + editing + proofreading + DTP by the same person.
paratranslator - someone who knows a foreign language and thinks that it is enough to be a translator.
ragline text - a text that consists of short, elliptical phrases, like in PowerPoint presentations, which take much more time to translate but is never paid a higher rate than normal text.
rephraser - an editor who rephrases the sentences rather than editing the translation.
transformatting - translation of a text that requires heavy formatting.
U-translation - back translation.
N-translation - translation of a text translated from another language.
S-translation - translation of a text written by a non-native of source language.
I-translation - direct translation.
L-translation - translation by a non-native speaker of target language.
V-translation - translation split between more than one translator.

Mykhailo Voloshko wrote:

It's not my invention and it means the translator who lowers the rate to win the project.

Thanks for this great idea of translator's jargon glossary and contributions!

Mats Wiman wrote:

HF = High flyer, i.e. someone so impressed with his business model and web page that he projects him as saviour, to which everybody (including the translator) should bow in awe and who is very often inexperienced and arrogant, benignly distributing 'projects' to 'hungry translators'.

Paul Dixon wrote:

embromation - the practice of making words up when you do not know the translation. From the Portuguese "embromação".
[Example: Ich readen der Küdozseiten ävri Day]

Machintranslationophobia - what you feel after seeing a machine translation.