>>>>Next time when I get to translate something (if I ever dare do that), I'll take notes and post the worst dozen cases here.
>>>
>>>
>>>The two of us are certainly among the worst dozen cases here <lol>.
>>
>>Include Terry... even though he's defending the language, ...

Defending the language? You of all people should recognise English to be one of the most versatile, flexible, evolving languages there are, with a great range of expressiveness, using "building blocks" - a "rapid reaction force" of a language. WHy be bogged down with thousands of specialised words that you have to learn when you can easily construct a concept with the arsenal of words and expressions that you already have. It's like the difference between an army that has many different weapons, each using a distinct ammo, compared with one similar but much of the ammo is common. German is a bit similar - using portmanteau words (although there's are over long and awkward). For instance, An ex colleague was once in Australia, where he saw a green frog in a tree. "What's that called?" he asked a native. "Why, a green tree-frog" answered the native. Serbian would probably have a 6 syllable special word for that, with about 20 different endings depending on person, single, double, plural, between 20 and 30, part of the sentence. What a waste of life learning all that.

In what other language can you replace a sentence like: "This hat belongs to the boyfriend of the girl next door" with "This hat is the girl next door's boyfriend's" or even "This hat is the guy who came round last night's"?

A language in which a noun, or noun phrase, can readily and easily become a verb, with no loss of understanding to the uninitiated. e.g. people who eat a packed lunch can be said to be "brown bagging"

>...he's actually helping me prove a point. When I say a word is missing, he gives me a workaround and points out that it's not a syllable longer. It's still missing.

and that point being that Serbian is an unweildy, over-complicated, antiquated language? (and it's written in VFP object code! :-)

>>
>>>I think it comes down to a certain amount of trust in the reader. A writer is obligated to express things as clearly as he or she can but can't work in fear that some reader somewhere will mistake the meaning. Some reader probably will. Have a reasonable target audience in mind and have faith that they will somehow muddle their way through.
>>
...
>>
>>Another one was early on when I came here. It was a medical education tracking app, and among the words which confused me utterly were "resident" and "fellow".

Maybe this is an American thing but what do you mean by "fellow"? In the UK it's like a university lecturer who's long-standing and has security of tenure.

>I knew both words from long ago, and they didn't make much sense in the context of medical education. What does it matter if a doctor is residing or just temporarily assigned to the location - he'll do his job either way. And it shouldn't matter if he's a jolly good fellow or not; even if he's a she, it's none of app's business to track.

You've hit on a good example here. Words for a person occupying a building:

Resident
Tennant
Inmate
Squatter

Different meanings dep. on their type of occupation.

>>
>>At least, with a word you don't know, you know that you don't know it. Words that you know seem so familiar - except that you need to notice that what you know doesn't make much sense.

er ... ummm ... ye-ahhh ... what?