The language barrier with the Brits.

Most of what I do is writing English for translation. So I write a reference copyblock for, say, an email - and it gets sent to different countries around Europe and beyond for translation.

I learned very early on when I started doing this for Ericsson in Stockholm to keep it simple and idiom-free. You start using metaphors or culturally-specific references and you'll soon have an irate account manager chasing after you because they've been fielding calls from nonplussed country managers asking what a 'sticky wicket' is.

So if I'm writing copy to be translated (or targeted at a non-native English audience) I keep it simple. No metaphors, no slang, no complicated sentence structure or pretentious vocabulary... in fact I only use words of more than one syllable if I really, really must.

It's something not everyone understands. The first problem tends to be with accounts based in the UK or the US - neither of which are countries known for their sympathy towards other
linguistic cultures. Agencies and marketeers all too often come up with concepts they insist are global... but which are almost entirely untranslatable. So local agencies are forced to water them down, make the best of what they have... and compromise.

There's another side to this coin too - and it's a slightly irritating one. When I write these slightly-too-bland-to-be-used-in-real-life copyblocks and send them to the countries they're not just translated. Each country has its own copywriters that will rewrite the copy keeping the same messages but making it work in their language, their culture and their marketplace. In other words they inject the national slang, idiom, cultural references and sellingness that I deliberately left out.

But the UK office almost inevitably (and this doesn't just happen to me, by the way - it's a common complaint) calls to say the copy's bland and crap and they're using their own.

Gah.