Is That a Fish in Your Ear?: Translation and the Meaning of Everything. By David Bellos. Particular Books; 400 pages; $20. To be published in America in October by Faber & Faber; $26. Buy from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk 《你耳朵里的是条鱼吗？：翻译与万物的意义》，大卫•巴洛斯著。特别书房：400页；售价20美元。即将在10月由费伯书局在美国出版；售价26美元；点击Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk购买。
the unrecognised importance of the craft
被人们忽略的
被人忽略一般用neglected, unrecognised，不被认同，不被承认。不过后面的内容，似乎忽略也可。
the unrecognised importance of the craft, from reading the instructions ...
从from开始contrary你另起了一句，但我认为from....是craft的内容，作者宣导的翻译技巧是留心生活中的方方面面，商品包装和安装指引、收集笑话、避免政治敏感词......
On the subject of style, Mr Bellos explains how it came to mean something other than the indispensable attributes of a gentleman ....
巴洛斯先生解释了文章如果涉及到一位绅士，如何翻译才能表现除了他不可或缺的品质以外的意思
提起“绅士”这个词，马上想到的是其言谈举止如何风度翩翩，所以拥有style自然是他的indispensable attributes.
other than 的意思：不同于/除了，在这里都讲得通。
试译：提起“风格”这个词儿，除了可以形容一位绅士必不可少的品质以外，巴洛斯先生还解释了它如何得以表示某些东西。
On the subject of style, Mr Bellos explains how it came to mean something other than the indispensable attributes of a gentleman and how literary style became contained within the structure of a sentence.
这句话里 how it came to mean something other than the indispensable attributes of a gentleman ，这里it应该说的是style啊，style mean indispensable attributes of a gentleman。
the unrecognised importance of the craft, from reading the instructions ...
从from开始contrary你另起了一句，但我认为from....是craft的内容，作者宣导的翻译技巧是留心生活中的方方面面，商品包装和安装指引、收集笑话、避免政治敏感词......
本来我也认为from后面的内容是指craft，但最后有一个the difficulties and political pressures of simultaneous interpretation，这个如果直译的话似乎只是一种困难与压力，算不上craft。
不过如果按你译的“避免政治敏感词”，那就可以算craft。
On the subject of style, Mr Bellos explains how it came to mean something other than the indispensable attributes of a gentleman and how literary style became contained within the structure of a sentence.
谈起“风格”，除了可以形容一位绅士必不可少的品质以外，巴洛斯先生还解释了它如何得以表示某些东西，还有如何能令文学风格蕴涵在句子的结构中。
我本来是想挑骨头的，但是挑了半天，我才发现echo.chan 斑竹说的是对的……
汗！！！
The nature of words began to acquire an (apparently) settled meaning.
关于这句话，看作者讨论好几次，说下我的理解，希望有帮助，
我感觉这句话就是说，随着把话语打印出来，我们开始渐渐明白什么东西叫做一个“单词”
Dictionaries are routinely thought to be about the meaning of words. Yet, Mr Bellos says, the concept of a word itself is almost impossible to define. The French have two distinct words for “word”, parole and mot. And how, for example, do you treat a German compound verb, or a Hungarian word formation which can incorporate a whole sentence? Are they words in themselves, or are they just separate words stapled together?
字典通常被认为是定义单词的。但是小b说单词本身这个概念却几乎没法下定义。什么叫做单词。法语有两个截然不同的表达单词的词——parole和mot。比如，如何来处理一个德语复合动词或者blablabla。。。？他们自己算是一个个单词还是他们是由一堆词组合起来的。
Of these 7,000 languages, about 80 are “vehicular” languages, such as Chinese, Hindi, Spanish and Arabic—languages learned by non- native speakers in order to communicate with native speakers of a third tongue.
在这7000多种语言里，大约有80种是媒介语，即非该语言母语者为了能和以第三种语言为母语的人沟通而学习的语言，如中文、印度语、西班牙语和阿拉伯语。
=======================
原译有误。
about 80 are “vehicular” languages
大约有80种是 “媒介”语 （即通用语——译注）
languages // learned by non- native speakers in order to communicate with native speakers // of a third tongue.
直译：非母语者为了能和母语者沟通而学习的第三种语言
意译：为了与不同母语者沟通而习得的第三语。
背景资料：
A lingua franca (or working language, bridge language, vehicular language) is a language systematically used to make communication possible between people not sharing a mother tongue, in particular when it is a third language, distinct from both mother tongues.
"Lingua franca" (通用语）is a functionally defined term, independent of the linguistic history or structure of the language: though pidgins and creoles often function as lingua francas, many such languages are neither pidgins nor creoles. Whereas a vernacular language is used as a native language in a single speaker community, a lingua franca goes beyond the boundaries of its original community, and is used as a second language for communication between communities. For example, English is a vernacular in the United Kingdom, but is used as a vehicular language (that is, a lingua franca) in the Philippines.
2.这一句已经点明了----it is about all sorts of translation，如果后面是列举，意思上应该包含在这句里面，后边再另外说，就有些啰嗦了。那如果算说明这个的内容，那根据就近原则，句子应该这样写：it is about the unrecognised importance of the craft ，and about all sorts of translation, from .....
3.后边还有一句this is a richly original cultural history, a journey from the days when the Greeks simply ignored other languages and the Romans forced all subject peoples to learn Latin, to Google Translate。要有这么多、这么深刻的内容，宜家的包装说明是沧海一粟，既然如此，又怎么说得上是书的主要内容？宜家只是一个家具店而已，还不如沃尔玛遍地开花呢，作为一本书的主要内容，可信么？
Is That a Fish in Your Ear?: Translation and the Meaning of Everything. By David Bellos. Particular Books; 400 pages; $20. To be published in America in October by Faber & Faber; $26. Buy from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk
《你耳朵里的是条鱼吗？：翻译与万物的意义》，大卫•巴洛斯著。特别书房：400页；售价20美元。即将在10月由费伯书局在美国出版；售价26美元；点击Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk购买
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