I came across this illustration of why thee are so many problems with translating from one language to the other. (link -- scroll down near the bottom)

And I heard a word which I hope I translated correctly -- flybill. I assume that's sUK for flier (or, flyer), or poster.

Yes, a flybill is a poster that is stuck up without permission (by a fly-poster). A flier isn't quite the same. It's an announcement that's handed to you, or put in your letter box. Most of them go for recycling after a cursory glance.

We're not so specific about flyers (or brochures or handouts or posters). However, we don't have flybills, do we?

Proof, I wondered what you wanted to point out on the link.

At the bottom of the page is a list of various foreign terms with their varied English translations alongside. You'd think each term would have one specific translation but not so.

You'd think each term would have one specific translation but not so.

Why would you think that? You might want to read up some on translation. (A good book, I've suggested before, is George Steiner's After Babel: Aspects of Language and Translation.) Anybody who's ever studied a foreign language seriously after a while notices that true one-to-one correspondences between concepts and words are few and far between.

While I didn't expect a one-to-one correlation, I did at least expect less diversity of opinion on what each term meant.

I did at least expect less diversity of opinion on what each term meant.

Why? Because there are no one-to-one correspondences, you'll always have a number of English glosses for each foreign word or phrase. I would be surprised if it wasn't that way.

Okay, now I see what you meant, Proof. I thought all the words, particularly with vero e proprio, were much like the words you find in a thesaurus. They don't all mean exactly the same thing, but that's because sometimes words can mean something a little bit different (and the differences in those words were "little" ones), depending on the context.

I hadn't known dinkum before and found this nice Quinion article on it: Link

It seems odd that some obviously direct translations, such as "point of reference" for "punto di riferimento" are omitted.

Slightly off topic, but has anyone here read, "Little Bee," by Chris Cleave? It begins with the main character musing about the differences between her native (Nigerian) patois and British English. Fun!

It seems odd that some obviously direct translations, such as "point of reference" for "punto di riferimento" are omitted.

Yes, these are called loan-translations. Like Spanish miel de luna for 'honeymoon' or German Wolkenkratzer for 'sky-scraper'. In linguistics, the term for these is calque. It seems if there is no equivalent (in meaning) phrase, many languages just translate the phrase literally.

Would that more literally be "cloud scratcher"?

Would that more literally be "cloud scratcher"?

Yes, but it was still kind of a loan translation.

I might have mentioned this before but one of my favourite bits of linguistic borrowing is Dandelion, an adaptation of the French "dent de lion" which is in German "Löwenzahn" which is a literal translation of Lion's tooth which is of course the literal English meaning of the French.

Of course the French also use "pissenlit" which is "piss the bed", a common English slang name for the plant.