Speaking and writing is a whole two different things, and when we write as a subtitle ‘‘Kick the Bucket’’ we are really using an idiom/slang that personally has this common meaning to me; when a person choose to commit suicide, and not when they die of natural causes, and that is why I felt it wasn’t appropriate when they used it in a subtitle where a respectful Korean elderly lady had died.
[Where does the idiom ‘‘Kicked the Bucket’’ comes from?]
The term is known to date from at least the 16th century. The more interesting and probably apocryphal/ euphemism origin relates to suicides relating to individuals who would stand on a large bucket with noose around the neck and, at the moment of their choosing, would ‘‘kick away the bucket.’’
I understand that in the Greek or in the many other language of the world ‘‘kicked the bucket’’ might be a way of saying that a person died, but to me, myself and I, I feel that is a very insensitive way of saying a person has died, and I find it so hard to believe that it would be a common way to say for example that a mother or father, any loved one we have in our life has ‘‘kicked the Bucket’’ instead of saying ‘‘my mother passed away’’ or ‘’ my father died’’ etc.
christina_
I think this is true in every language and this is why subbers must not use machine-translating.
I agree 100% that people/subbers should not use machine translating tools, but in here and many other stream services (NTFX) they do it because they might not be too proficient in the English language, and they need to use it. I don’t have any problem in people using any translating tool as long as #1 They don’t use the whole sentence given by the tool translator. #2 They HAVE to do their research, and work to make the sentence better not PERFECT, but better. It will take more effort but in the end, they will be giving a more quality subtitle.
I’m not annoyed at the person/subber for using ANY translation tool, as much as I am annoyed that these subbers/translators/editors; don’t put any effort in giving a better quality work when writing their subtitle by taking the time to do a bit more research work, and use the many other sources available to us: like the Thesaurus, Dictionaries etc.
‘‘They could do better, if only they would try.’’