Improvements 21 February 1988

Trevor Leggett was head of the Japanese Department of the BBC.

This is one of his broadcasts to Japan

Zubari for 21 February 1988

Hello listeners. Have you ever seen an ‘official’ painting of someone whom you know well?  It can be a surprise.  I knew the former head of Kings College, London University.  When he retired, he had a very wrinkled face, though still very impressive.  I saw the official painting made for London University when he retired.  To my amazement, there were hardly any wrinkles on it; he looked much younger.

Official painters, like Court painters, often do this.

As a translator, I have sometimes met a similar situation.  Suppose a famous author has made a mistake, a simple slip; should one correct it in the translation? If one does not correct it, readers will often think it must be a mistake by the translator.  If one does correct it, then one has not made a faithful translation.

There was an amusing case where a new book on physics had one very technical chapter, containing a very long and difficult equation discovered by the great Danish physicist Niels Bohr.  The publishers were afraid of making a mistake in printing this.  So, they asked Bohr to write it himself; and then they put this into the page as an illustration, saying: “For interest of readers, here is the equation written in his own hand by Professor Bohr.”

But in fact, Bohr had made a slip in writing the equation.  The publishers were too nervous to query it; they were frightened by Professor Bohr’s name. So, they left it, and the book appeared with the mistake in it.  But the mistake was in Professor Bohr’s own handwriting!

© Trevor Leggett