I read in the news about someone who was handing out trial-sized Dove bars at the recent major tennis event at which Donald Trump was attending. The person who was doing this was presumably making a reference to Infinite Jest as a round about way to needle Trump. In David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest novel, the president of this fictional, near future USA declares subsidized time. What this means is that each year moving forward will have the opportunity to be branded by the highest bidder. The story takes place over a number of years and one such year is the Year of the Trial-Size Dove Bar.

When I hear the Year of the Trial-Size Dove Bar what always immediately comes to mind is Dove chocolate bars. Just as soon as I imagine some delicious chocolate, however, I quickly realize that "trial-size" indicates a different product. Trial-size usually refers to soap, deodorant, or some similar product, not food. For candy in particular we are used to "mini" and "fun-size". So while Year of the Trial-Size Dove Bar has some ambiguity in American English, it's generally taken to refer to soap or deodorant. I don't recall the text of Infinite Jest ever clarifying this point.

If we look at the German translation we find Jahr Der Dove-Probepackung. I asked a native German who hadn't read Infinite Jest how she would translate this. She told me that she takes this to mean "Year of the Dove Sample". In fact, she specifically thinks it refers to a bar of soap. She is basing this on the fact that in Germany she isn't aware of Dove chocolate being a thing people would know about. For her, it must refer to one of Dove's household products and "Probepackung" gives it away as a bar of soap, because Probepackung refers to something dry. Other products like shower gel would come in a "Tube" or "Flasche".

The Brazilian Portuguese translation, on the other hand, is explicitly translated as chocolate! Ano Chocolate Dove Tamanho-boquinha obviously has the word chocolate right in it. When I asked a native Brazilian who hadn't read Infinite Jest how she would translate this, she told me "Year of the Fun-Size Dove Chocolate Bar". The literal English translation of "Tamanho-boquinha" is "little mouth", and it is used for candy in the same way we would use "fun-size" or "mini" in American English.

Of course, cultural and linguistic differences between countries have always caused differences in understanding and translation. I just found this example to be fun and unexpected!