06 May 2014

Show 'em what you can do_#3

As the heading suggests, this post is one of a series.
To follow, start with Show 'em what you can do_#1 and proceed in chronological order.
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The spelling used here is based on the analysis detailed in the February 2012 post -iz- is not American.

Heading and introduction

For the French, see Les paris gagnés de DCN
DCN innovates time and again
Thanks to inventors like Maxime Laubeuf (1864–1939) and Gustave Zédé (1825–1891), France has long stayed a step ahead of its competitors in submarine design and construction. Following in the footsteps of its predecessors, DCN has repeatedly demonstrated its flair for innovation. Today, DCN is a leading European submarine builder and a major exporter with clients that include the navies of Spain, Portugal , Pakistan and Chile. Below we describe some cutting-edge techniques developed for the French Navy’s Le Triomphant-class nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines, or SSBNs.
Running commentary
  • International readers will probably want a little more information about the inventors than the French provides.
  • Second sentence of French contains too many ideas. I've attempted to break it up.
  • Many readers, including non-specialists, will likely be more familiar with the standard acronym SSBN than the long form (nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine), hence the early introduction.
  • Note too that while the general rule in technical journalism is to give the long form corresponding to each acronym, some naval acronyms are in a category of their own. SSBN stands for ship, submersible, ballistic (missile), nuclear (powered). It is what is called a standard hull classification symbol and, like other symbols of this type, is normally introduced as above.

ChatGPT, a drafting aid for translation by emulation

On 17 October 2011, I published the first of two posts summarising my general approach to the type of translation/adaptation services I was ...