Trilingual Motor Engineering Dictionary
Page 49
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
THE difficulty facing the compiler of a dictionary of motor engineering lies in making accurate translations of terms used in a different way in another language. In his " Autodictionaer," Dr. Gustav Dierfeld has taken great pains to ensure that his equivalent English and French terms approximate as closely as possible to the German word, even where it has necessitated the use of three or four alternative terms.
In the case of the English words, he has also given prominence to American usage, to the extent, in some cases, of omitting the English term. For example, " thermosyphon-kuelung" is variously translated as "natural-circulation water cooling" and "gravitysystem water cooling," whereas thermo
syphon cooling is the normal English usage.
However, this third edition of the German-French-English dictionary, 288 pages in all and containing about 6,000 words, has benefited from the compiler's revision and is commendably comprehensive and up to date. Although in some cases engineers using the dictionary would find fault with the English translations, the fact that they would probably be using the dictionary only for translation from German, as there is no English-German or FrenchGerman section, would overcome this difficulty for, presumably, they would already know the correct English term. The work includes conversion tables and is printed in Latin type.