Mihaela Roman Feb 8, 2011:

the source was clear to me I tried to stay away from stilted words, like “magnitudine”. So, not to be too radical with the translation, I preferred to offset the lengthy phrase with the words proper. In my view, "proportion" carries the same meaning and, on top of that, it is more explicit.

Anca Nitu Feb 8, 2011:

my point exactly re order I see that one of the solutions is " proportion" - which is close to " ratio"
The source text is very unclear, but I see your point with preserving the integrity of the source text. My reservation was that it has to be logical, flow naturally and make sense :) This is why I proposed the simplified solution
I would then suggest " significant but of a smaller caliber"
What do you think?

meirs Feb 8, 2011:

order of magnitude Usually represents a big difference - one order of magnitude is understood as approx. 10 times (lower or higher). ST does not refer to ratio IMHO. In any case it is my impression that ST is from a newspaper article where the author had to provide an inflated text to fill up the page. The actual numbers are given in the same sentence, so "semnificative, dar de magnitudine mai redusă" simply describe "cu 0.0, 0.0 şi, respectiv, 0.0 la sută". An astute reader does not need the preceding description - can sense the relative magnitude of the figures rightaway (versus those in the preceding sentence - not known to us here).

Anca Nitu Feb 8, 2011:

I would say only if it is possible I would have phrased it as " of a smaller magnitude order"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_magnitude
It may be that the text refers to a ratio.

meirs Feb 7, 2011:

Mixed feelings Should the translation preserve the inflated wording style - or say it in simple and straightforward language (as William Strunk would have )?