Quality and speed are essential to the translation industry. Fortunatley, this was an area where software could be developed to facilitate the management of source and target texts. During the translation process, words, phrases, and even complete sentences that occur repeatedly are stored in a retrievable database to ensure consistency within the translation. Moreover, it helps to maintain formatting codes, for example, HTML-tags.

This is all very good news, and Apropos daily counts the blessings of advanced technology. Still, where does this leave the translator's input? Is he reduced to a mere machine-operator, an "hysterical robot" (Lucebert) that buckles under the pressure of deadlines? Or can he still be an alchemist, a creator of language?