Beta test please

[David Lee]

On Mon, 17 Mar 2003, Denis Beauchemin wrote:

> Le lun 17/03/2003 à 08:57, Julian Field a écrit :
> > Ideally, an update of the translations would be nice. The new English text is
> >
> > "If you are sending spam and continue to do so, your
> > Internet Service Provider may be contacted and requested to close your
> > account."
>
> In French:
> Si vous continuez à nous envoyer des polluriels nous allons contacter
> votre fournisseur de services Internet pour lui demander de bloquer
> votre compte.

To my shame, I have largely forgotten the French I learned at school.

But it strikes me that the translation of:
   your [ISP] may be contacted
into:
   nous allons contacter votre [...]

seems subtly different on two counts:

1. The "may" has become "will" (lit. "are going to");

2. The "passive" has become "active" ("we" will do the contacting).

A re-translation back to English would become "we will contact ...",
wouldn't it?  Is that the intention of the message?  If so, perhaps that
is what the English version, too, should say.



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