A Mystery Revealed

Drum roll, please...
Written by Terri Stone on March 27, 2007

Related Reading

Return to "If You Can Read This, You're Hired"

The Translations
Thanks to Patrick Martin for sending visual translations of the want ads that were so good, I decided to co-opt them for my own use here.

Figure 1 translated:

Figure 2 translated:

Figure 3 translated:

The snarky comment about the missing space is courtesy Patrick Martin -- just like a typographer to notice!

The Winners
Forty-six people wrote in with the correct answers. Many more made a valiant effort but missed the crucial addition of "Mac and" in Figure 2. Several people translated "Mac and" as "Mac end," which I counted as an incorrect answer until one of you showed me that there is, in fact, a defensible reason for that answer.

I've alphabetized the winner list below by first name because a few people didn't include their full names. If you're on this list, you'll receive your InDesign Magazine download information within a few days of this article's publication date!

Amy Kelley
Amy Smith
Angela R. Stewart
Beata Acs
Charles Chandler
Charles Kindall
Chaya Weintraub
Chrissie Palmatier
Clint Ward
Dale Mauk
David Wilson
Deborah Johnson
Don Derenthal
Don Walker
Douglas Stram
George Morten
Graham Wise
Jami Drost
Joel Chia
John Hawn
Jon Hegstrom
Jon Nedry
Jon Wilcox
Karen Gaboury
Kelly Kolton
Laurel Warwick
Lisa Fleischmann
Luvindulli
Margaret Torrance
Maria Anelli
Michael Crumley
Michael Sesto
Mikael Stokkebro
Nelce Kernes
Nick Hall
Nur Monson
Patricia Ward
Patrick Martin
Paul Oratofsky
Pierre
Ressa Mccray
Richard Baskett
Russell Stuber
Seth Benson
Stacy Fontenot
Steve Hume

1

Picky?

As long as we're being picky, shouldn't "Based" in the translation of the first example start with a lower-case b? And shouldn't the translation for the second ad be in ALL CAPS? Good call on the missing space.

2

It pays to be picky, sometimes.

This was a fun little contest, and I feel honored that my translation images were used to illustrate the follow-up solutions article.

However-and not to look a gift horse in the mouth, nor to dinigrate the efforts of other winners, but-I'm not sure I agree with Ms. Stone about accepting the justification for the substitution of "end" for "and" in Figure #2. Apparently, this little change to the content of the text thwarted several of the entrants.

The spirit of Lunar's original adverts was meant to bring focus upon the applicants for whom those little differences are significant and important. If many of us were able to see the difference between the dingbats representing "a" and "e" surely we deserve to be distinguished from those who couldn't, or who were perhaps a bit careless or too hasty. I fully agree that the visual appearance of the two dingbats is very similar, but "Mac end design work" is grammatically clumsy and ambiguous, and I doubt Lunar would have phrased it that way in the first place. Further, there are corroborating examples of the "e" and "a" characters very nearby visually in the original image, and a reasonably quick inspection-using the translation for context-should have revealed and confirmed the difference, however subtle.

That said, though (and sorry to be such a picayune weasel!), my thanks to CreativePro for a fun contest, for using my images, and for the year's subscription to the InDesign Magazine PDFs. (And dang, I sure wish it was a dead-tree version)

:o)

Login

Login to post a comment. Not a member? Sign up here
You may login with either your assigned username or your e-mail address.
The password field is case sensitive.
Forgot your password?