Oliver Simões Jan 27, 2018:

Register (mis)match? Depending on how we choose to translate this sentence, we may or may not incur into a problem of register mismatch. Personally speaking, I think it's important to match registers when translating. Anyway, here's a summary of the different registers as food for thought:

"bench-level register (used in applications-oriented as opposed to theoretical or academic levels of language)
dialect register (relates to a specific dialect)
facetious register (meant to be humorous or funny, at times inappropriate)
formal register (marked by lexical and/or grammatical formalities)
in-house register (company-specific; not recognized by an outsider)
ironic register (makes use of irony)
neutral register (the same as standard register)
slang register (informal, used in spoken and everyday language and less commonly in documents)
taboo register (language expression that's prohibited or restricted by social custom)
technical register (appropriate to scientific texts or special languages)
vulgar register (makes use of profanities or strong language)"

Quoted from my translation course online; I believe this was originally taken from an article on Wikipedia.

Frank Miller Jan 25, 2018:

Thanks, y'all! Answer posted. :)

Douglas Bissell Jan 25, 2018:

@Frank, You post it as you suggested it first and I'll agree

Tania Pires (asker) Jan 25, 2018:

@Frank and Douglas That's a good one, which I can use in this context. Thanks! :)

Tania Pires (asker) Jan 25, 2018:

@ Teresa É uma tradução demasiado à letra.

Douglas Bissell Jan 25, 2018:

Frank's idea is exactly what came to my mind :-)

Frank Miller Jan 25, 2018:

There’s always the expression of “having a stick up one’s ass,” but I’m not sure if you can use vulgarities.

Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida Jan 25, 2018:

@Tania as stiff as a broom handle?