21.06.17 Do you want to sound like a Brit? Hardly achievable! Take, for example, this piece of intralingual translation: 

“That wazzock dared to gazump me; I'm gobsmacked by this sticky wicket full of codswallop that's gone pear-shaped!”

That sentence may not sound serious. But the situation it describes is. Translated into standard English, it would be something like “That idiot dared to offer more money for the house after my offer already had been accepted; I'm shocked by this tricky situation full of nonsense that's gone awry!”

http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20170619-why-british-english-is-full-of-silly-sounding-words

17.06.17 A curious singularity of human mind makes us always look for a more precise variant that is often found outsid“That wazzock dared to gazump me; I'm gobsmacked by this sticky wicket full of codswallop that's gone pear-shaped!”
e one’s mother-tongue. It is the case when intralingual translation goes side by side with interlingual translation, or translation proper (the search begins with the examination of the resources of one’s mother’tongue, and then passes on to a foreign language or languages). This can be illustrated by a resort of the English-speaking author to a German word that seems to him to be a more ‘beautiful’ choice. As far as I am concerned I am happier with снятие сливок:

In any union of entities with diverging interests, cherry-picking -- or, to use a beautiful German word, Rosinenpickerei -- is an issue. The European Union is no exception, and right now, the bloc's post-Communist members stand accused of cherry-picking from EU rules. It may cost them.

В любом союзе, объединяющем субъекты с различными интересами, проблемой становится «снятие сливок» — или, если использовать красивое немецкое слово, Rosinenpickerei («выковыривание изюма» — прим. перев.). Европейский Союз — не исключение. В данный момент некоторые из присоединившихся к блоку посткоммунистических стран сталкиваются с обвинениями в том, что они занимаются именно этим, вступая в противоречия с правилами ЕС. Возможно, им вскоре придется за это расплачиваться.

13.06.17 Vodka shots in the Kremlin, right? Not exactly.

В Кремле уже празднуют победу? Не совсем.

Why does the original look stylistically more impressive than the translation? Generalizations and omissions of cultural terms are unavoidable in the translation. And it is a powerful argument for the towering posture of the original over the text of translation and at the same time it is a question that has been haunting translators since times immemorial: how come that these unavoidable losses of information never prevent the languages’ demonstrating their equality through innumerable bridges established by translation with the cultures that are deliberately hiding themselves in isolated and forbidding places? 

11.06.17 "The Catalonian regional government has chosen a date for its referendum on independence that Madrid has ruled illegal" The fools should have known better and fo;;wed the British suit. The ban will only give a boost to separatism!

7.06.17 An opinion of an editor about the options around Quatar: "I do not think that Turkey will risk any conflict with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and the US over Qatar. Russia is increasingly cosying up to Saudi Arabia, and I also don’t believe Iran would enter into a war to support Qatar".  When a child is cosying up to a parent this is stylistically normal : someone small  is snuggling up to someone who is big and gives comfort and protection.  When someone describes Russia's actions as cosying up we are confronted with three possible interpretations: 1) someone is ignorant about Russia's place in the world; 2) someone is ignorant about stylistic norms of English; 3) someone is trying to humiliate Russia. Anyway, it is a sample of "hate language" unanimously denounced by Western mass media as violation of political correctness. Alas, they do not practice what what they preach!   

5.06.17 On the 4th of June the BBC informed that "The hero police officer rugby-tackled a knifeman" .  The ambivalence provides room for imagination in the choice of translation correspondences: блокировать захватом; сбивать с ног, обезвредить, выбить нож. Clarification с помощью приёма регби turns translation into a very awkward unit. That's why generalization seems to be unavoidable for stylistic reasons. 

1.06.17 Trump - the father of a new word: "One word was close to breaking the internet on Wednesday morning: "covfefe". It was an apparent typo in a tweet by US President Donald Trump, and internet users have been mocking him mercilessly. "Despite the constant negative press covfefe," he tweeted just after midnight, Washington time. And he then appeared to have gone to bed, without finishing his thought or correcting his mistake. It took six hours before he acknowledged it with a good-humoured response, and by that time a lot of people had had a lot of fun".