The amazing Millau viaduct and passing thoughts about translation

So yesterday we came back over the Millau bridge, which is stunningly beautiful - some photos of the bridge will follow promise! We also treated ourselves to a stop at the visitors centre and the wonderful views back across the bridge and over the valleys and mountains. The exhibtion about the building of the bridge is in French and English and my linguistic skills were quite tested by some of the very technical vocabulary - a good learning experience. I was rather tickled however by the name given to this device built specially to build the bridge and called in French "le translateur". The English for it is "the conveyor", it conveys or carries, it bears the weight of and transports. This of course set off lots of thoughts about translation and how that conveys thoughts, ideas and communication from one language, one culture, one context to another.