Saturday, July 05, 2008

I Started a Joke...

... and I wish I hadn't.

In my line of business you get your kicks where you can. When I don't think I can stand the thought of translating another sentence, I mosey over to a site where we translators hang out. I like to check out the action in the various forums.
I can choose between a variety of forums: "Translation art and business", Technical forums", Non-English forums, etc. It's sometimes difficult to choose from the fare on display, so I often solve the problem by choosing "Most Recent Posts".
This time I started a thread, as we like to say:

My title was: Most Recent Posts
I wrote
Does this mean a) that you display most (but not all) recent posts or b) only the most recent ones?
I got an answer back:
Only the most recent ones
As you present it, it would never occur to me it might mean "most, but not all".
Another contributor wrote
I think...
...it's b).
I wrote back
You could be right...
... But then again, it could be a)
A little later I wrote again
On reflection...
To remove all possible ambiguity, and in the case of a), perhaps the title of the forum could be: "Most most recent posts"? And in the case of b), perhaps "Recent posts" would suffice?
At this point, the forum moderator helpfully stepped in an effort to shed some light
"Most Recent Posts" shows the newest forum posts
Hello all,
The "Most Recent Posts" section will show you the list of the latest or newest posts made in the forums.
Best regards,
Jared
I wrote back
Can I just get this straight?
Are you saying that the list includes not only the latest but also the newest posts?
Jared replied
Sure

Hi Barnaby
Yes, correct
Best regards
Jared
I wrote back
Right
Direct link Reply with quote Edit
Thank you, Jared
I let it rest for about 24 hours, and then wrote
Just to be absolutely sure...
As I understand it, the "Most Recent Posts" forum lists not only the LATEST but also the NEWEST posts?

I haven't had a reply to that yet...

3 comments:

  1. So, are the latest posts the most recent posts or the posts that were posted the most late?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Further, your post reminds me of an apocryphal cold-war anecdote about a race between an American car and a Soviet car:

    The American car won.

    As reported in the Soviet press, the Soviet car came in second and the American car came in next-to-last.

    ReplyDelete
  3. That's a lovely story, and one I hadn't heard before!

    ReplyDelete

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