Alter regularly composes phrases that sound strange in English, in part because they carry hints of ancient Hebrew within them. The translation theorist Lawrence Venuti, whom Alter has cited, describes translations that “foreignize,” or openly signal that a translated text was originally written in another language, and those that “domesticate,” or render invisible the original language. According to Venuti, a “foreignized” translation “seeks to register linguistic and cultural differences.” Alter maintains that his translation of the Bible borrows from the idea of “foreignizing,” and this approach generates unexpected and even radical urgency, particularly in passages that might seem familiar.

Free software is a necessary but sometimes insufficient requirement to build domestication immunity. Two more measures include simplicity and open platforms.

WhatsApp rose by trapping previously-free beings in their corral and changing their habits to create dependence on masters. Over time, this made it difficult or impossible to return to their previous lifestyle. That process should sound familiar: it’s eerily similar to the domestication of animals. I call this type of vendor lock-in user domestication: the removal of user autonomy to trap users into serving vendors.

a class of businesses models I call “user domestication”. The domestication of users is high on my list of problems plaguing the human race, and is worth a detailed explanation.

Why with the animals 13wanderest thou on the plain?

Culture-specific lexis refers to those items in a text which are deemed to be unique to a particular culture, and may pose problems for translation from the source text (ST) into target text (TT). These items are a challenging area for translation as the way these are dealt with directly affects the finished product; potential problems could be, for example, what Venuti (1998Venuti, L. (1998). Strategies of translation. In M. Baker (Ed.), Routledge encyclopaedia of translation studies (pp. 240–244). London, UK: Routledge. [Google Scholar]) calls the foreignization, when the characteristics of a text unique to the source text culture are preserved as much as possible at the sake of readability, or on the opposite side, domestication of a text. A problem translators face is the question of how to deal with cultural aspects which are contained in a source text, and finding the most appropriate way to successfully convey these in the target text. Culture-specific lexis can include those culture references which may be part of a culture’s daily life, within the society of which that culture’s members share a set of values, beliefs, ideas and knowledge, and which they have direct access to. Examples would be places or shop names, such as Waitrose or Kensington in the UK, Kangnam in South Korea, or Ginza in Japan. These place names carry connotations or feelings which members of society share.