[thelist] Apologies

Scott Glasgow paladin at fuse.net
Thu Sep 22 11:29:11 CDT 2005


<<::SNIP::>>> There is an old saying in Turkish
> "Every hero has their own way of fighting."
>
> For the Turkish list members (I know there are some)
> "Her yigidin ayri yogurt yiyisi vardir."
>
> Yeah I know it's not the exact translation:
>
> The mode to mode translation would be:
> "Every hero has their own style to eat yoghurt."
>
> Sounds a little peculiar when translated :)
>
> Cheers,
> Volkan.
>
<<::SNIP::>>

Yeah, every language has its idiomatic expressions which, when literally 
translated, make no sense at all to a speaker of a different language. I 
recall reading a letter in Writer's Digest from a German expatriate living 
in America. She was stating how much she enjoyed writing in English because 
of its expressiveness, giving an example by saying that there was no way for 
her to write the phrase, "makes me tingle all the way down to my toes" in 
German. I'm afraid that my German is wholly inadequate to test the validity 
of that statement, but it kind of illustrated the tendency of English 
speakers, especially American English speakers, to use metaphor, slang, 
shortened forms, and primitive forms of rhyming slang (nothing coming close 
to the incomprehensibility of Cockney rhyming slang, of course ;-).

An example from my local neighborhood might be, "Everyone's got their own 
sack of rocks to carry around," meaning that no one is without problems, 
issues, personal history, etc. that they must deal with. Makes sense if 
you're a native American English speaker, but might invoke a rather peculiar 
image when translated in to French, German, or Turkish, especially if 
encountered out of context.

Cheers,
Scott




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