Gelak sampai tergolek2 dok

"Gelak sampai terguling2 or tergolek2", that's the term we, at the subs's desk normally used when we came across words that being translated literally. For example, giant utility should be translated as "syarikat gergasi" not "syarikat raksasa", piracy when it refers to IT softwares or hardwares, should be "cetak rompak" and not "pelanunan" (lainlah kalau pirate kat laut), keynote address should be "ucaptama" and not "alamat papan kekunci". The problem is that some of these people tends to translate directly without reading and understanding the whole content of the article or story first. Yes, it happens and "no pray pray one". Kalau yang English, no problem, sebab straight forward jer ...

There are many other examples. Kenkadang, gatekeeper pun terlepas pandang, so jadilah macam ni. Kalau yang junior takper, kalau yang senior takkan kita nak check their copies, right. In fact, a friend of mine from the other media purposely called and teased me, "eh...sapa yang jadi raksasa ker lanun kat opis ko tu, panggillah ultraman suruh tolong, kitorang dah tak larat nak gelak, ada yang sampai guling2 gitu". Kat ofis I, we used initials to mark our "cleared copies" so that if there are any complaints later on, we just refer to the initials to the so-called copies, and kita tahulah sapa punya hasil tangan yang kreatif tu. Okaylah, humans make mistakes tapi janganlah obvious sesangat2 . The juniors we can tegur, what bout the very2 senior ones????

I masih ingat lagi, masa buat reporting dolu2, one of my collegues tersalah eja "Public Bank" jadi "Pubic Bank" throughout the whole story. Nasib baik subs perasan, kalau tidak, alamat, kena samanlah we all. Itu belum lagi yang ejaan "butir" jadi "burit" or "ketika" jadi "ketiak".
Satu lagi, kes konon2 nak buat lawak, terlepaslah pulak, tak taulah sempat tak round satu Malaysia, alih-alih dapat call dari one of the printing media suruh hantar correction cepat2 - bayangkan "News in Brief" dah jadi "News in Seluar Dalam". Yelah, brief tu selain dari "ringkas" boleh jadik "seluar kechik orang lelaki aka seluar dalamlah". Apa lagi kitorang kat opis dalam kecut2 perut tu, sempat juga gelak sampai tergolek-golek dok.

In any translations gak, we need to diversify the words. For example, in market reports (shares, klibor, klci or any commodities), the word "prices went up" boleh dipelbagaikan jadik meningkat, menambah, mengukuh, menokok, mengembang sementara "prices went down" dipelbagaikan menjadi menyusut, merosot, turun, lebih rendah, berkurangan dan lega. Idaklah kita boring bila membacanya, ye dakk???