Monday, December 3, 2012

Nutzen

German: Nutzen

One of those tricky words.  Normally - by far, "nutzen" means "use" and "Nutzen" means "benefits" - but in printing of cardboard where multiple blanks will be punched out of a large sheet after printing, "Nutzen" are "blanks".

It took me a really long time to figure that one out, too.

Saturday, November 10, 2012

c.s.

Spanish: c.s. (in pharmaceutical documentation)

This is an abbreviation for cantidad suficiente, a "sufficient quantity" of an excipient to make up a given volume.  In English, of course, we use Latin, so q.s. is the corresponding abbreviation.

This and more are waiting for you at the utterly tremendous Tremedica glossary of signs and symbols used in Spanish medicine.  I wish I'd found this glossary years ago.

Friday, October 5, 2012

Löschen

German: Löschen (von Fracht)

Today I learned that "Löschen" doesn't always mean deletion or putting out a fire.  For some reason, it also means to unload freight.  I mean, come on, how does that make sense?

Languages are cool.

Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Grüner Star, grauer Star

German: grüner Star, grauer Star

This blew my mind.  Grüner Star is glaucoma, grauer Star is cataracts.  Why?  I have no idea!  Is glaucoma green?  According to this history of ophthalmology ... maybe.

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Hemmhof

German: Hemmhof

Like many fields where basic research was done in different countries before science became an international effort, microbiology has some unexpectedly foreign-seeming terminology in German vs. English.  Zone of inhibition would nowadays probably be called an Inhibitionszone - but back in the day, they thought nothing of just calling it a nice German Hemmhof.

Here's a fantastic glossary of microbiological terminology for your delectation.

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Leuchtdichte

German: Leuchtdichte


I always want to translate this "light density", but of course it is luminance.  Fortunately, every time I have to translate things about lighting, I always have a good TM.  But for this last one, I ran across a great lighting technology dictionary.

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Sicherheitsabfrage

German: Sicherheitsabfrage

I've been flummoxed by this for years, and now I feel stupid: confirmation prompt is a much, much better translation than the stupid "safety query" or "security query" I've been defaulting to.