ABSTRACT
This chapter describes when lists have been compiled, one of the few things people can immediately turn them into is a frequency curve. People plot the distribution of translations over time. The resulting graphs may not always be eloquent but they do offer a satisfying sense of control over otherwise unruly data. The curves can confirm or deny the countless minor hypotheses, suspicions or hunches that surface as one goes along compiling the lists. They also offer relief from the tedium of bibliographic data. The movement from numbers to importance always involves a degree of selective processing. This means the reader of frequencies must look very carefully at what is being said. Lawrence Venuti, for example, is not above producing strangely manipulative sentences like the following: British and American book production increased fourfold since the 1950s, but the number of translations remained roughly between 2 and 4 percent of the total.
