In my career as a professional translator I’m all up for doing more subtitling work – be it
multilingual (translation) or just writing out what is said in the same language. And I have
done some work in this field already; and the people I did it for often laid down guidelines
that I was supposed to observe as I wrote my subtitle text – which, I have to say, didn’t
surprise me at all. These guidelines typically rule on such things as when the first line should
be aborted and you go onto the second one, or finer points concerning the use of punctuation
marks in subtitles. Yes, believe me when I say that being properly literate in a language, as
important as it is, is just scratching the surface of what the art really involves.
That said, let me put forward this pair of sentences – the same five words, and the only thing
different about them is that “OK” is followed by a comma in the first one but by a full stop in
the second one.
OK, let’s get to it.
OK. Let’s get to it.
I now comment on the first one: when I read this I think that the person saying it will mostly
likely be genuinely ready to co-operate / do their bit – at least, in their own mind. However, I
will not fail to consider how likely it is that they are probably not as concerned with the
matter at hand as they should be, and / or they underestimate the seriousness of it, and / or
they are only doing their bit in it out of vested interests.
Now the second one. Well, just read it for yourself and compare it to the first one and then
ask yourself if you agree – as I certainly do – that the kind of voice overtone it leaves in your
mind is just notably different. For me personally, I certainly get the impression of a notably
higher level of sincerity; a more pronounced no-nonsense overtone, compared to the one with
the comma – and I will add that it makes me think of the point Tom Scott makes about the
full stop / period in text message speech, in this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fS4X1JfX6_Q I remember following this guy on Twitter
months back. I definitely recommend him, and that you check out the stuff he posts. This is
coming from a professional translator: I think he’s great.
That said, I’m open to the possibility of other people being inclined to respond to this pair of
samples – the second one in particular – in a manner different to my own. Maybe to you, for
example, the second one most strongly suggests, at least in your mind, that whoever the
speaker is, is speaking out of a sudden realisation as to how serious the thing is which leaves
them with a sensation of alarm or discomfort; probably not least because they had originally
resisted another person’s urging to do what they wanted them to do as part of it?
I’ve posted many articles but I really wanted to put this one on LinkedIn, a place for public
debate. Go ahead, let me know what you think.