_suppose there are 10.000 technical terms in your domain
_suppose 5% is inconsistent due to alternatives, synonyms, spelling variants etc.
_suppose there are only 2 alternatives for each of these
_suppose translation is in 20 languages
The figures represent the factor by which the cost of changing terminology increases at the various stages of publication, i.e. it is 200 times more expensive to correct a terminology error at the maintenance stage (after publication) than to correct it at the product data stage.
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Cost:
  • 20.000 superfluous translations, augmenting at each subsequent translation job
  • correction cycles in documentation and translation memories
= 10.000 superfluous translations due to target
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the same calculation holds for translation:
suppose you translate 10.000 words
suppose 5% is inconsistent
suppose there are only 2 alternatives for each of these
suppose translation is in 20 languages
= 10.000 superfluous translations due to source
A Case for Terminology.......
A case built on rather conservative basic suppositions