Translation Note 001 (June 28, 2025)Confusing the Whole with its Parts in Japanese
Japanese readers apparently have a higher tolerance than do anglophone readers for confusion between the whole of something and the parts thereof. Here are three examples.
メニュー
Computer menus aside for a moment, this can refer to the menu, or a specific item, or the aggregate of some items noted thereon. A good example of this is メニューが多すぎて決められない。It is clear that the speaker would not be talking about a plurality of menus, but rather about a menu having so many items that it is hard to make a selection.
SNS
First, we need to understand that SNS is the Japanese logogram for the Japanese word エスエヌエス, the Japanese word for what in English is called social media. Once we get that out of the way, we still have the problem that, in Japanese, SNS can mean social media as well as some specific account on a social media platform.
An additional layer of vagueness occurs when we see SNSなど, often used in news coverage. My guess is that they just mean online, but perhaps don't want to use that, possibly because it is often linked with online banking or online casino gambling. That said, オンライン is often seen to refer to online meetings, but usually when it is directly at a reader demographic that is more technically astute than the general populace that uses SNS.
By the way, my guess is that very few Japanese who hear and use the Japanese term SNS are aware or care about the expression from which this (originally English) initialism comes. When asked what SNS is, most Japanese would probably need to restore citing an example, such as LINE (the de facto go-to Japanese messaging platform) or things like Instagram.
HP
This is the Japanese logogram that can represent either a whole (website) and a part thereof (webpage). There are very few instances when it could be safely rendered as home page in English. In things like HPで紹介しています, it should usually be rendered as website. If it is clear that the speaker/writer is talking about a specific internal webpage, for example 例のHPを印字しました, it should be webpage, and certainly not website or home page.