It is not everyday you'd get a United States presidential nominee from a major party being caught on a hot mic saying the classic "P word" out loud.

But when he does, how would you report it?

The media in the United States were sweating some blood pondering about how to go about reporting the lewd comments made by Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump on air without violating Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulation on profanity.

This is so as the origins of Trump's crass comments about women were made in 2005 on video.

But some clarity is on hand.

As Poynter -- a site about journalism, thereby effectively making it journalismism -- helpfully pointed out and explained:

Because Trump's attitude toward women has been a central issue raised by Hillary Clinton, there is a clear justification for journalists to report fully what he said, without editing his crude words.

And so, news networks chose to go on air with his comments -- as this is a subject with potentially grave political consequences -- but not before warning viewers of the impending explicit language.

Degrees of censorship in newspapers

Even though US newspapers, printed or online, are not regulated by any entity, they took it upon themselves to balance "taste" with "clarity", which resulted in different approaches taken to report what was said as accurately as possible, while maintaining a semblance of propriety.

Some opted to publish Trump's quotes in full (such as The New York Times), while others opted for partial censorship (such as The Washington Post, which broke the original story on Oct. 11 where the tape was supplied to them by a confidential source).

But what happens when media from another language pick up the story?

For example, how would the Chinese media in Singapore report "Grab them by the pussy"? How do they even translate "pussy" for their Mandarin-speaking audience? "小猫咪"? (Which means "kitty cat", in case you can't read that.)

Alas, no.

Chinese media in Singapore

Lianhe Zaobao, a Chinese broadsheet here, reported:

"。。。 用粗鄙露骨的言词大谈自己怎么玩女人"

This directly translates to: "... use extremely coarse language to openly discuss about how he plays with women".

Unfortunately, in this case, Zaobao opted for a paraphrase, where the entire situation and what Trump said have been melded into one in the process, resulting in the loss of colour and bluntness of the original quote.

Channel 8, on the other hand, was more direct in their online report:

"。。。可以随时“抓住女性的私处”"

This directly translates to "... can anytime grab a woman's privates".

Slightly better, but still boring. This too qualifies as a retelling of the story, rather than a direct quotation. But it got closer.

This severe loss in translation could be due to several factors though:

1) There is no way you can translate "pussy", because it is a euphemism.

2) The Chinese press cannot possibly use "阴道" (which means "vagina") because this would be too literal when Trump meant it figuratively.

But, hey, maybe there wasn't a need for any translation because everyone knows what "The P Word" is anyways.

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