Fuzzy matching is a technique used in computer-assisted translation as a special case of record linkage.
It works with matches that may be less than 100% perfect when finding correspondences between segments of a text and entries in a database of previous translations.
Because of the polymorphous and dynamic nature of language, particularly English (which accounts for 90% of all source texts undergoing translation in the localisation industry[citation needed]), methods are always being sought to make the translation process easier and faster.
On occasions a translator is under pressure to deliver on time and is thus led to accept a fuzzy match proposal without checking its suitability and context.
TM databases are built up by input from numerous different translators working on a variety of different texts, with a danger that sentences extracted from this word "tapestry" will be a stitched-together hodgepodge of styles, and the antithesis of the striven-after consistency – what some critics have dubbed "sentence salad".