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EU wordsmith lifts lid on eurojargon

Poor translations of EU jargon can alienate ordinary people, with EU translators' increasing reliance on the internet raising the risk of mistakes, European Commission terminologist Alex Andersen told EUobserver.

The commission currently employs 20 terminologists, one for each official language, to advise translators how to handle industrial terms such as "biomass" as well as EU jargon such as "subsidiarity".

Over-literal translations can fall foul of connotations in the target la...

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Author Bio

Andrew Rettman is EUobserver's foreign editor, writing about foreign and security issues since 2005. He is Polish, but grew up in the UK, and lives in Brussels. He has also written for The Guardian, The Times of London, and Intelligence Online.

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Author Bio

Andrew Rettman is EUobserver's foreign editor, writing about foreign and security issues since 2005. He is Polish, but grew up in the UK, and lives in Brussels. He has also written for The Guardian, The Times of London, and Intelligence Online.

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