Path: ...!weretis.net!feeder9.news.weretis.net!i2pn.org!i2pn2.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: jerry.friedman99@gmail.com (jerryfriedman) Newsgroups: sci.lang,alt.usage.english Subject: Re: Inkhorns are a fascinating linguistic phenomenon, ... Followup-To: sci.lang, alt.usage.english Date: Tue, 17 Sep 2024 01:57:49 +0000 Organization: novaBBS Message-ID: References: <877cbcgly9.fsf@parhasard.net> <76308de7b2b351111d3e19b78e65bde7@www.novabbs.com> <1cdb3d45d477f2213decfdf5cf6d9f0e@www.novabbs.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Injection-Info: i2pn2.org; logging-data="2345221"; mail-complaints-to="usenet@i2pn2.org"; posting-account="od9foDe1d3X505QGpqKrbB1j6F4qQM01CuXm1pRmyXk"; User-Agent: Rocksolid Light X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 4.0.0 X-Rslight-Posting-User: 3f4f6af5131500dbc63b269e6ae36b2af088a074 X-Rslight-Site: $2y$10$41T.Udcwvw4kfuQ7wWpLc.qSjKsnq5/jLaoweErmFztUO9.QHzC6q Bytes: 6550 Lines: 125 On Mon, 16 Sep 2024 20:11:31 +0000, Silvano wrote: > jerryfriedman hat am 16.09.2024 um 20:31 geschrieben: >> On Mon, 16 Sep 2024 18:03:02 +0000, Silvano wrote: >> >>> jerryfriedman hat am 16.09.2024 um 16:35 geschrieben: >>>> [alt.language.latin deleted] >>>> >>>> On Mon, 16 Sep 2024 6:19:10 +0000, Aidan Kehoe wrote: >>>> .. >>>> >>>>> IOne of the reasons I listen to MDR Sachsen’s >>>>> „Hausarztsprechstunde“ >>>>> https://www.mdr.de/sachsenradio/programm/ratgeber/hausarztsprechstunde100.html >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> is for the non-jargon vocabulary. (It’s a radio programme aimed at the >>>>> general >>>>> public.) Like, of course I know that a pneumothorax is a Pneumothorax, >>>>> but >>>>> what’s equivalent to “collapsed lung” when speaking to non-medical >>>>> patients? >>>> >>>> Do you practice in a German-speaking country? Or in an English- >>>> speaking country where you see so many German-speaking >>>> patients that you need to know such things? >>> >>> I don't know what is Aidan's profession, >> >> (That should be "I don't know what Aiden's profession is." A very >> difficult point for many non-native speakers.) > > Not so difficult, actually. But then, I should try more intensely to > think in English and be more careful before I write to AUE. Both German > and Italian draw me to the wrong order and at present I use English only > here, as a casual listener to BBC World Service and a reader to many > Guardian articles. Let's hope I can still learn something from your > suggestions. The fight against Alzheimer is on. OK, it's "reader of", not "reader to". >>> but medical practitioners are >>> not the only people who may need to know the equivalent to a medical >>> expression in another language. There are also those strange beasts >>> called translators. I am one of them. >> >> Anch'io sono tradutorre. (I had to look that up.) > > And you looked it up wrong. Correct: Anch'io sono un traduttore. It > would be understandable without "un", though, just like "I'm translator, > too." is understandable. Understandable, but not correct. Sorry, I meant to add that I was adapting a quotation from Michelangelo. >> I've published some >> of my translations of Antonio Machado's poems, and I'm actually >> supposed to get money for some of them. > > Congratulations. I'm serious. Even more serious for your feat of > actually getting money (if you do get it) than for your ability to > translate poems, although it's an extremely difficult job. Thanks! > > Germans have > > the word "Königsdisziplin" for that, but I know no ready translation > in > any other language. You can translate it, of course, but you'll probably > have to explain the concept with several words. Google Translate suggests "supreme discipline", though I don't think I'd say that the decathlon is the supreme /discipline/ of track and field. Poetry is certainly the hardest kind of translation, but there's a certain comfort in knowing you can't really succeed anyway. >> My wages for this project >> so far amount to about ten cents an hour, maybe less. > > ROTFL. I've earned a living as a translator and interpreter for 40 > years. You must have been exceptionally slow, not quite unsurprising for > translators of poems. Overnegation? I think you mean "unsurprising" or "not entirely surprising". Anyway, I am slow--it's slow work, and I have a job, and anyway I get distracted by things like Usenet-- but I've translated much more than I've published, and the majority of what I've published or had accepted was in literary magazines that don't pay, or only pay a copy of the issue you're in. "There's no money in poetry, but there's no poetry in money, either." --Robert Graves, who I'm sure got paid a lot more for his poetry than I ever will > I don't know the current prices that publishing > houses in English-speaking houses pay for literary translations, but the > prices I heard from German and Italian publishing houses make me > comment: beggars might get a higher hourly income. Unless the translator > signs a contract giving them a share of the sales revenue and they > translate all Harry Potter books. Once in ten blue moons. (Yes, I know > the original idiom.) I'm not at the point of going to publishing houses yet, though maybe I should be thinking about it. I suspect the people who do the prestigious translations are getting subsidized somehow, either by grants or by the publishers of, say, university presses. > And before a smarty-pants suggests ChatGPT or something like that: let's > wait and see who is responsible and gets fined or jailed when ChatGPT > botches a translation and legal proceedings involving 100 million pounds > or dollars get lost, or a bridge collapses and people die, as a > consequence of that translation mistake. I haven't dared to see what ChatGPT and its friends would do with the poems I've translated. However, no one would be risking a lawsuit. -- Jerry Friedman