User talk:Pascalbrax

adding unsourced material and distorting sources

The edit you made to Costa Concordia disaster here diff has been reverted. (Not by me, but I would have if I had caught it in time.) You changed the translation of a quote, and I accept that this was done in good faith, but you appear to have not read or changed the reference that went with the translation, which was sourced to an eminent professor of linguistics. When you substituted your translation for his, you left the impression that it was he who supported that version -- in other words, putting words into his mouth and distorting the source. The translation itself is under discussion on the talkpage, and if you believe your understanding of Italian profanity is better than that of Bob Ladd of Language Log, that would be the place to argue your case. You are not the only person to do this but please, don't do it again.

I realise that this could look harsh on an empty page, but I note that you have had a welcome message, and chose to hide that. If you want help and support in your editing, I would be pleased to assist. BrainyBabe (talk) 19:39, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, I've just seen that you did join in the discussion on that talkpage. I'll respond there. Essentially, the version you were altering had already been tampered with, i.e. no longer represented Dr Ladd's opinion. BrainyBabe (talk) 19:51, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for spending your time writing to me about the Concordia disaster translation. I'm truly sorry about my mistake. It's clear I didn't want to tamper anything, I was just trying to fix something that looked terribly wrong. Keep in mind that the only word that i fixed at that time was "dickhead", Which I strongly believe is just plain wrong. Italian is my native language, but I don't keep a blog neither I'm an editor for a magazine, so trying to argue again could be viewed as personal research. Anyway I'm fine with the actual translation. Nevermind. :) --Pascalbrax (talk) 22:15, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for your gracious response. I appreciate that editing in one's second language, even to correct something "terribly wrong" in one's first language, is difficult. Thank you for your efforts to improve the encyclopedia. (I moved your comments here; see the rationale at the top of my talkpage. As this little misunderstanding is resolved, please feel free to delete this whole section if you wish to.) BrainyBabe (talk) 23:50, 23 January 2012 (UTC)