The Challenges of Translation

In the Elementary episode "We Are Everyone," Joan sits with her friend in the park. As they talk, Joan receives text images from Sherlock who is testing her powers of flash analysis. What happened to the dolls in the images?

Joan looks at one image. Her friend makes a face and says, "That's a whole family of dead dolls."

"Ghastly," Joan agrees. 

Or does she?

I've always assumed that Joan says, "Gas leak." That is, she responds by declaring a deduction about what she sees on the screen. She follows the line by saying, "No foul play" as she types.

The confusion here points not only to the daily confusion that attends communication; it points to a problem faced by translators. In a very funny (and poignant) Bones' episode, Hodgins discovers--before everyone else--that Arastoo is dating Camille. He learns that Arastoo lent her a book of his poetry, which is very romantic. 

Hodgins then "translates" the poetry using computer software. The "romantic" poetry translates into lines that include "under the heavens fruit floats" and "love hurts as skin yells with new shoes" and "you are my carburetor."

Of course, Arastoo's poetry is better than that! 

But it comes down to choosing the right possibility out of myriad possibilities for a single word or phrase--one that we read or one that we heard--and the choice comes down to context. My choice for Joan works as does "ghastly." The context allows for both. 

Last year, I attempted a "Hodgins" approach when I mistakenly ordered the German version of a manga. I went ahead and created a penciled-in translation using Google Translate. 

Luckily, I'd read the manga already in English (borrowed through the library). I doubt very much that I would have gotten even slightly close if I hadn't. I would have written the following in the manga's margins:

 "Here are sloths on the edge of night." 

and

"Machines sing about curry and toast." 

and

"See the cats type the snowflakes."  

Surreal. Maybe even poetic. Not all that comprehensible.