In this article the author tackles the issue of equivalence in 'specialised' and literary texts, posing the question whether there are two types of concept-term relations according to established but potentially contradictory view. The article addresses three issues: (1) The relationship between literary translation and special-purpose translation; (2) the nature of specialised terms; and (3) the nature of meaning. By closely analysing the use of two adjectives in a short tale by Hans Christian Andersen, the author demonstrates that it can be important to preserve observed lexical patterns of distribution in a literary text so that consistency becomes as important as in technical translation.