Misunderstanding和difference

刘强东明州事件和解后发了个声明,国内的新闻稿这么写的。“ 10月2日消息,双方律师表示,刘强东先生和刘婧尧女士于2018年在美国明尼苏达的一次偶然事件所造成的误会,占用了大量的社会资源,也给彼此的家庭造成了深重的困扰。今天,为了避免进一步的诉讼伤害,双方决定消除误会,达成和解,为这次事件画上句号。
明显是翻译自"The incident between Ms. Jingyao Liu and Mr. Richard Liu in Minnesota in 2018 resulted in a misunderstanding that has consumed substantial public attention and brought profound suffering to the parties and their families. Today, the parties agreed to set aside their differences, and settle their legal dispute in order to avoid further pain and suffering caused by the lawsuit.
Beyond the above, there will be no further comment from Ms. Liu, her representatives or her counsel, nor jointly from the Parties."
我看到反对者激愤地说故意曲解翻译,misunderstanding应该译作“分歧”,而不是“误会”,觉得挺有意思,就去查了一下词典。
确实,《新世纪英汉大词典》第2个义项就是“2.<正式或婉>(disagreement)分歧;不和;争执”,其他词典也大多在第2个义项就是这个。
另外,新闻稿里将后面的difference也译作“误会”,明显是为了与前面的相呼应,查了查difference并没有误会这个义项,倒是在第4个义项“4.(disagreement)意见分歧;不和”。
于是,misunderstanding和difference在这个声明中实际上是同义词,都是disagreement。
这个事件本身不想多讨论,不过按惯例和解是少不了钱的。现在是女方得了实惠,男方靠小动作挽回了点面子,算是皆大欢喜。
对于我这种死背单词的,misunderstanding就只背了个“误解”,difference只背了“不同”(不过这个依上下文倒是不难从“不同”推导到“分歧”),倒是一堂生动的词汇课。

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没错,原文的意思并没有消除误会,而是搁置分歧。

康奈尔大学法学院网站Legal Information Institute对misunderstanding的解释是:
Under contract law, a misunderstanding is an objective ambiguity where two parties to a contract are subjectively thinking of two different things.
就已经很说明问题了。

有个段子,说就是Dong, stop.和Don’t stop.的分歧。