Spicing up your translations with little-used expressions

Original article by Corinne McKay, from Thoughts on Translation.

At last summer’s Translate in the Catskills conference (I know, I talk about this conference all the time…it was great!), instructor Grant Hamilton commented that he had never seen a translator use the expressions “giving short shrift” or “paying little heed.” Grant’s point was that most translators stick to the path of least resistance, the expressions that they’ve used over and over again when writing their translations.

Since then, I’ve been making a deliberate effort to spice up my translations with expressions that are accurate but that give the translation a flair that hackneyed phrases don’t have. I’ve found that even boilerplate legal documents are more engaging to read when you really focus on writing well. I think it’s important (especially in legal documents) not to sacrifice meaning for style, but especially if you write for direct clients, compelling style can be a real boost for your translations.