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Translation is not a transfer of meaning from one language to another, but a dialogue between two languages. —Richard Pevear
People of every nation are learning English. The language of the once-global island empire and its former colonies has conquered the worlds of technology, commerce, and popular culture. Bankers, pilots, commodity traders, film stars, and ship's captains have to know the language of Shakespeare, Lincoln, Churchill, and Yogi Berra. But the conquest is not complete. History, literature, and lab reports still first appear in French, Russian, German, Mandarin, Japanese, Serbo-Croat, Greek, and Hebrew. Authors who want their books and research to reach a global audience will eventually have to translate those results into English. Right at the moment when a scholar who writes in French or Farsi wants to reach the world, a long negotiation begins. For the French author of a recent history of DuPont and chemical engineering, that negotiation led to a book in English very different from the original in French.
We all know that some names and some subjects simply sell books. The reverse can also be true. Certain words can cut the sales of a book. Have you ever read a popular book on science that included differential equation in its title? For those few of you who have searched Amazon or your local bookstore for a page-turner on pipes and valves, the words "chemical engineering" do not appear in the titles of books on the popular science shelves. The 24 books Amazon.com lists from the search string "chemical engineering" include only handbooks and textbooks.
In fact, the publishing history on both sides of the Atlantic of a recent book on the history of chemical engineering at DuPont shows that those who market books believe "chemical engineering" in the title will kill a book's sales. The book, published in English in December of 2006, is titled Nylon and Bombs: DuPont and the March of Modern America. First published in French in 2001, it is a solid, well-documented account of the rise of chemical engineering at DuPont. The author, Pap Ndiaye, shows how, beginning early in the 20th century, DuPont evolved from an artisan company with long apprenticeships in its factories to an engineering company living by the slide rule. Ndiaye gives the reader both the American and global context of the rise of chemical engineering as a profession.
If you are thinking a book like this should have a title such as Formula for Success: How Chemical Engineering Changed DuPont and the Chemical Enterprise, you would agree with the author but not with his publisher. Ndiaye had a working title that included the words "chemical engineering," but his French publisher convinced him to accept a more provocative title. The title of the French edition is Du nylon et des bombes: Du Pont de Nemours, le marché et l'État américain, 1900-1970. Translated literally, the title is Nylon and Bombs: DuPont de Nemours, the Market, and the American State. To complete the sales pitch, the black-and-white cover of the French edition features a photo from the late 1930s showing a group of pretty young women in nylons. Actually une bombe (feminine) in French is best translated as "sex bomb" in English: with pretty women in nylons in the picture, you have both kinds of bombs in the DuPont arsenal. The more sterile, stylized American cover uses bold colors and a collage not open to the charge of sexism.
The American edition retained the eye-catching title but made a subtle change in the subtitle that looks like a mistake. In French the masculine noun marché means "market." Drop the accent on the final "e" and the feminine noun marche has the meaning "walk, step, or march." Did Johns Hopkins University Press make an error, or see the switch of genders as an interesting pun? Well probably never know. When asked, the author was silent on the subject. The word "March" adds a military connotation in the English subtitle that is different from the French version, but since the main title is "Nylon and Bombs" it is a change in emphasis that the content allows.
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