Heard it in the Courtroom

 Tricky or just plain odd things interpreters face in the courtroom

By Yvette Citizen, Federally Certified Court Interpreter

 Welcome to The Confident Interpreter’s segment of Heard it in the Courtroom, where we share interesting – sometimes bizarre – utterances the TCI team or our followers have heard in the courtroom. How would you have interpreted the following?

 Please let us know what you think and don’t forget to submit anything you’ve heard in the courtroom for our next segment.

Defense attorney: My client’s name, Yuki, means snow in Japanese and I think that’s a very appropriate name for her, Your Honor. I’ve gotten to know her since the beginning of this case, I can tell you she is a kind person and as naïve as the driven snow. She participated in this because she wanted to help her friend…

 Prosecutor:  What defense counsel just stated is nothing but an attempt at a snow job, Your Honor.  She knew perfectly well…

 In this case, the attorney is modifying the very old saying, “as pure as the driven snow,” meaning being pure and virtuous. ‘Driven snow’ refers to the snow carried by the wind.

 Here’s the definition of ‘snow job’ from dictionary.com.  Slang. An attempt to deceive or persuade by using flattery or exaggeration.

  Would you have been able to keep the snow references in your target language/s? I was the one confronted with this encounter and I confess I was feeling quite The Confident Interpreter until I got to ‘snow job.’ I did come up with an equivalent idiom in Spanish, but it had nothing to do with snow.

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Judge to prosecutor: “I assume you’ll be woodshedding your agents before they testify? You’ll take them out to the woodshed and tell them not to talk about this case among each other or with anyone else who may testify in this trial.”

  ‘A trip to the woodshed, take someone to the woodshed’ is an old saying referring usually to a parent taking a child to the woodshed, away from the house and other people to reprimand or physically punish the child. In this case, the judge is obviously asking the prosecutor to admonish his law enforcement witnesses in private.

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Prosecutor: “This defendant appears to have Jack-in-the-box syndrome; no matter what this Court or any other judge tells him, he seems to pop right back into the system.”

 Jack-in-the-box syndrome is an expression mostly used for children who “pop” out bed constantly during the night after being tucked in.

 If you grew up in a different country and weren’t exposed to jack-in-the-box type toys, click on the link below to see one. The idea that it pops up, you expect it, but it still surprises.  jackintheboxyoutube

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 Prosecutor: “The Government isn’t asking for a pound of flesh, Your Honor, we just don’t think that time served is an appropriate sentence under the circumstances.”

 Here we have a quote from Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice. Here’s a definition from Collins online dictionary:

 Pound of flesh - in American English: Something that strict justice demands is due but can only be paid with great loss or suffering to the payer.”  

 Shakespearean sayings are common in the English language. This might be a good opportunity for you to research the most popular ones.

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 And lastly, a classic:

Judge: Sir, I realize you’re as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs, but please try to relax. I’m going to explain some rights that you have, then I’m going to ask you some questions to establish a factual basis for your plea, and finally, I will ask you how you plead to the charges.

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 In court, we often hear attorneys mix metaphors, create metaphors, and stretch metaphors sometimes to bizarre extremes. We have to be ready for them. If you don’t have a ready equivalent in the target language, you should at the very least be able to state the meaning in plain language.

 Let us know how you would tackle these, share your experiences, and don’t forget to check out our Free Resources and other materials at TheConfidentInterpreter.com

 Feel free to repost but make sure you give us credit.

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