The issue of intertextuality is an important and often overlooked one.

As an English speaker in America, when I hear someone say, "well, a rose by any other name…." I know the reference is to Shakespeare, and that it has nothing to do with roses. But the seemingly similar, "well, no matter what you call a lily…." doesn't have the same impact.

I think one of the hardest challenges of modern translation is when people already know the wrong translation. For example, if people already know about a "scapegoat," calling it "Azazel's goat," no matter how accurate, doesn't convey the right message. I ran into this issue translating a 1,500-year-old Hebrew liturgical poem. If I tell you it mentions a "thin whisper of a sound," you might think the line is an original invention of the poet. If I translate it as (the less accurate) "still small voice," you know right away that the poet was quoting I Kings.