Sokath, his eyes uncovered [1]

[cellio]

One of the things that's hard about learning English from the outside (and, I presume, hard about other languages) is how much of common usage is idiom and analogy. This thought came to mind during a meeting today with exchanges like the following (in fairly rapid succession):

Developer: What about $problem?
Tech Lead: We'll burn that bridge when we come to it.

Developer: Are you saying the build manager is God?
Developer 2: Watch out for the lightning bolts.
Developer: We'll burn that bush when we come to it.

Product Manager: Ok, we'll include your feature in the product but only as a secret alpha-release utility.
Developer: So it's in the product, but I can't fix bugs.
PM: Right.
Developer: I feel like the white trash with the half-built cars on the overgrown lawn.
PM: True, and you're in my neighborhood now. Maybe I should rethink that.

Maybe you had to be there.

[1]

Comments

[chaos-wrangler.livejournal.com]

*g* Yeah, that's about how I deal with the translator: it can't work, but we'll ignore that for the sake of the story. (For me this doesn't feel like a reclassification as "magic", but that's another story.)

I think the difference for me with this episode is that the translator usually isn't a major plot point, but in this episode language (and the translator being IMO inconsistent) is a very major plot point.