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Re: Q: Can you please assist me with translation?
From: |
Paul Eggert |
Subject: |
Re: Q: Can you please assist me with translation? |
Date: |
Sat, 13 Apr 2002 01:13:15 -0700 (PDT) |
> From: Karl Eichwalder <address@hidden>
> Date: Sat, 13 Apr 2002 06:30:23 +0200
>
> Paul Eggert <address@hidden> writes:
>
> > It's not silly to distinguish between British and American spelling in
> > translations.
>
> I'm told there are more than spelling differences--happily, program
> messages aren't that often affected :)
Yes, there are many differences. The classic work on this subject is
H.L. Mencken's _The American Language_, which I recommend to anyone
who wants to translate between the dialects. You can get a free copy
of the 2nd edition (published December 1921) at
<http://www.bartleby.com/185/>; I have a printed copy of 4th edition,
published April 1936.
Mencken does have something to say about his attempts to distinguish
between American and English:
For each of the three earlier editions of this book I prepared a
list of couplets showing variations between the everyday
vocabularies of England and the United States, and in every instance
that list had become archaic in some of its details before it could
be got into print. The English reviewers had a great deal of sport
demonstrating that a number of my Americanisms were really in wide
use in England, but all they proved, save in a few cases of
undeniable blundering, was that the exotic had at last become
familiar. Others undertook to show that some term I had listed was
not only accepted current English, but also discoverable in the
works of Shakespeare, of Chaucer, or even of King Alfred, but as a
rule the most they could actually prove was that it had been good
English once, but had fallen out of currency, and had then been
taken back from the United States, where it had survived all the
while. From those reviews I learned that opinions often differ as
to whether a given word or phrase is in general use. Sometimes, two
reviewers would differ sharply over a specimen, one arguing that
every Englishman knew it and used it, and the other maintaining that
it was employed only by traitorous vulgarians under the spell of the
American movies.
- Re: Q: Can you please assist me with translation?, (continued)
- Re: Q: Can you please assist me with translation?, Paul Eggert, 2002/04/12
- Re: Q: Can you please assist me with translation?, Hrvoje Niksic, 2002/04/12
- Re: Q: Can you please assist me with translation?, Paul Eggert, 2002/04/12
- Re: Q: Can you please assist me with translation?, Hrvoje Niksic, 2002/04/12
- Re: Q: Can you please assist me with translation?, Paul Eggert, 2002/04/12
- Re: Q: Can you please assist me with translation?, Hrvoje Niksic, 2002/04/12
- Re: Q: Can you please assist me with translation?, Paul Eggert, 2002/04/12
- Re: Q: Can you please assist me with translation?, Hrvoje Niksic, 2002/04/12
- Re: Q: Can you please assist me with translation?, Martin v. Loewis, 2002/04/13
- Re: Q: Can you please assist me with translation?, Karl Eichwalder, 2002/04/13
- Re: Q: Can you please assist me with translation?,
Paul Eggert <=
- Re: Q: Can you please assist me with translation?, Martin v. Loewis, 2002/04/13
- Re: Q: Can you please assist me with translation?, Thomas Bushnell, BSG, 2002/04/13
- Re: Q: Can you please assist me with translation?, Paul Eggert, 2002/04/13
- Re: Q: Can you please assist me with translation?, Martin v. Loewis, 2002/04/13
- Free Translation Project and projekti.linux.org.ba (was: Q: Can ...), Paul Eggert, 2002/04/14
- Re: Free Translation Project and projekti.linux.org.ba (was: Q: Can ...), Mirsad Todorovac, 2002/04/15
- Re[P.S.]: Free Translation Project and projekti.linux.org.ba (was: Q: Can ...), Mirsad Todorovac, 2002/04/15
- Re: Q: Can you please assist me with translation?, Mirsad Todorovac, 2002/04/15
- Re: Q: Can you please assist me with translation?, Martin v. Loewis, 2002/04/13
- Re: Q: Can you please assist me with translation?, Alan Jelaska, 2002/04/13