5 ms·

Taken to an extreme, would you propose to altogether disallow translation from one language to another? To instead force readers to learn new languages in order

by peller 9y ago

Taken to an extreme, would you propose to altogether disallow translation from one language to another? To instead force readers to learn new languages in order to strictly preserve the original authors' intents? Personally, I would like to see our storage formats move towards more dynamic documents, so that the reader can literally flip between the original content and the "modernized" variation. Ebook readers already have integrated dictionaries, why not the discussions and interpretations integrated too? (I ask in a partially rhetorical sense; is fighting the inevitable changing of language really gaining anybody anything? Is it not possible that that "problem" is a red herring?)

DoubleCribble 9y ago
IMHO, modernization tip toes into the same category as translation. From my limited literature experience, the translator is always credited somewhere near the author as it is considered the translator's version. I can imagine a "Do-Gooder" helpfully going through Huck Finn and modernizing all that messy vernacular but that book ain't Mark Twain's and it ain't something I'd want to read. Some folks may have trouble understanding what is being said but modernizing the text would suck the life right out of the story. To your point, I think the ultimate prize is both the original and a modern/translated digital version. Anecdotally, I might have developed an appreciation of Shakespeare MUCH earlier in life had I known not just what the characters were saying but combined with how they were saying it.
- throwanem 9y ago
  > I can imagine a "Do-Gooder" helpfully going through Huck Finn and modernizing all that messy vernacular You needn't imagine it; it's happened, more than once. For example: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/07/books/07huck.html?pagewanted=all http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/07/books/07huck.html?pagewant...
- acabal 9y ago
  We actually have Huck Finn in our catalog, and of course we've preserved all of the vernacular. I invite you to check it out for yourself to see what you think. "Light modernization" in our sense doesn't mean "ham-fistedly change old-timey vernacular into new-fangled internet slang", it simply means some basic, mostly-automated one-to-one spelling and hyphenation updates. Things like "develope -> develop" and "to-night -> tonight", that would not change the meaning of the text. Vernacular is not affected by these changes, nor would we want it to be. :) Think of it more like modernizing spelling of Shakespeare, so that we can enjoy the text and not spend time parsing spelling like: Had, having, and in quest, to have extreame, A blisse in proofe and provd and very wo, Before a joy proposd behind a dreame... Some people might prefer that old-fashioned spelling, and it might be of some use to academics and historians, but I think the majority of casual modern readers would have an easier and more enjoyable time with light modernization.
  - DoubleCribble 9y ago
    Thank you for the reply. I can only imagine that the application of "Light Modernization" to this masterpiece would not only change the pronunciation of the words, it would add the implied missing words thereby disrupting the meter and rhyme and thus subsequently ruin the sonnet. I understand the point of making things readable but when you start changing the spelling, you actually ruin the art form. Sonnet > Light Modernized Poem Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments. Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove. O no, it is an ever-fixed mark That looks on tempests and is never shaken; It is the star to every wand'ring barque, Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken. Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Within his bending sickle's compass come; Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom. If this be error and upon me proved, I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
    - acabal 9y ago
      Ironically, you've posted the lightly modernized version of 116. :) In the 1609 printing it looks like: O no, it is an euer fixed marke That lookes on tempeſts and is neuer ſhaken; It is the ſtar to euery wandring barke Whoſe worths vnknowne, although his higth be taken... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonnet_116 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonnet_116
      - DoubleCribble 9y ago
        Touche! :D The point still stands. If "mostly-automated one-to-one spelling and hyphenation updates" changes 'wand'ring' to 'wandering', 'worth's' to 'worth is' or 'Love's' to 'Love is', you break the sonnet.
        acabal 9y ago
        Our changes do not :)
        roninb 9y ago
        I think this is a good time to maybe do some research into whether your complaints are valid or not before making them... You clearly aren't seeing that the point, in fact, does not stand...
throwanem 9y ago
I don't want discussions and interpretations integrated! At least, if they're there, they need to be trivially disposable, such that only those who actually want to see them do so. I say this because I have never in my life been rendered so furious by the action of a literary editor as to have Shirley Jackson's We Have Always Lived in the Castle completely ruined for me by some importunate jackass who insisted upon putting a long, discursive deconstruction of the entire novel into a preface of an edition I incautiously happened to choose. By the time I realized what I was reading, it was too late, and I found myself unable to appreciate the actual story at all, having had it helpfully predigested for me by this ham-handed oaf who so highly valued his unique and precious insight into what Jackson was really trying to say that he put it first in the book, where it lay in the path of the not perfectly cautious reader as a beartrap in that of a cheerful weekend rambler. I should like any such initiative as that you describe to take as axiomatic it's worth not doing that kind of thing, is what I'm trying to get across here.
cestith 9y ago
Changing the dialect is not the same as a foreign language translation. It can easily be misunderstood as the author's intent since it's the same language overall. It's copyediting something already published. As someone who grew up in Hannibal, Missouri where Sam Clemens did, let me tell ya it's still a tad diff'rent from N'York. If someone intends to "modernize" a book, particularly the dialog, they need to make it clear that it is a translation from one dialect of the language to another. They need to not credit the author those new words and say they just fixed typography. There needs to be an "as interpreted by", and that person needs the blame by name.

by peller 9y ago

DoubleCribble 9y ago

IMHO, modernization tip toes into the same category as translation. From my limited literature experience, the translator is always credited somewhere near the author as it is considered the translator's version. I can imagine a "Do-Gooder" helpfully going through Huck Finn and modernizing all that messy vernacular but that book ain't Mark Twain's and it ain't something I'd want to read. Some folks may have trouble understanding what is being said but modernizing the text would suck the life right out of the story. To your point, I think the ultimate prize is both the original and a modern/translated digital version. Anecdotally, I might have developed an appreciation of Shakespeare MUCH earlier in life had I known not just what the characters were saying but combined with how they were saying it.

throwanem 9y ago
> I can imagine a "Do-Gooder" helpfully going through Huck Finn and modernizing all that messy vernacular You needn't imagine it; it's happened, more than once. For example: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/07/books/07huck.html?pagewanted=all http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/07/books/07huck.html?pagewant...
acabal 9y ago
We actually have Huck Finn in our catalog, and of course we've preserved all of the vernacular. I invite you to check it out for yourself to see what you think. "Light modernization" in our sense doesn't mean "ham-fistedly change old-timey vernacular into new-fangled internet slang", it simply means some basic, mostly-automated one-to-one spelling and hyphenation updates. Things like "develope -> develop" and "to-night -> tonight", that would not change the meaning of the text. Vernacular is not affected by these changes, nor would we want it to be. :) Think of it more like modernizing spelling of Shakespeare, so that we can enjoy the text and not spend time parsing spelling like: Had, having, and in quest, to have extreame, A blisse in proofe and provd and very wo, Before a joy proposd behind a dreame... Some people might prefer that old-fashioned spelling, and it might be of some use to academics and historians, but I think the majority of casual modern readers would have an easier and more enjoyable time with light modernization.
- DoubleCribble 9y ago
  Thank you for the reply. I can only imagine that the application of "Light Modernization" to this masterpiece would not only change the pronunciation of the words, it would add the implied missing words thereby disrupting the meter and rhyme and thus subsequently ruin the sonnet. I understand the point of making things readable but when you start changing the spelling, you actually ruin the art form. Sonnet > Light Modernized Poem Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments. Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove. O no, it is an ever-fixed mark That looks on tempests and is never shaken; It is the star to every wand'ring barque, Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken. Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Within his bending sickle's compass come; Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom. If this be error and upon me proved, I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
  - acabal 9y ago
    Ironically, you've posted the lightly modernized version of 116. :) In the 1609 printing it looks like: O no, it is an euer fixed marke That lookes on tempeſts and is neuer ſhaken; It is the ſtar to euery wandring barke Whoſe worths vnknowne, although his higth be taken... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonnet_116 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonnet_116
    - DoubleCribble 9y ago
      Touche! :D The point still stands. If "mostly-automated one-to-one spelling and hyphenation updates" changes 'wand'ring' to 'wandering', 'worth's' to 'worth is' or 'Love's' to 'Love is', you break the sonnet.
      - acabal 9y ago
        Our changes do not :)
      - roninb 9y ago
        I think this is a good time to maybe do some research into whether your complaints are valid or not before making them... You clearly aren't seeing that the point, in fact, does not stand...

throwanem 9y ago

I don't want discussions and interpretations integrated! At least, if they're there, they need to be trivially disposable, such that only those who actually want to see them do so. I say this because I have never in my life been rendered so furious by the action of a literary editor as to have Shirley Jackson's We Have Always Lived in the Castle completely ruined for me by some importunate jackass who insisted upon putting a long, discursive deconstruction of the entire novel into a preface of an edition I incautiously happened to choose. By the time I realized what I was reading, it was too late, and I found myself unable to appreciate the actual story at all, having had it helpfully predigested for me by this ham-handed oaf who so highly valued his unique and precious insight into what Jackson was really trying to say that he put it first in the book, where it lay in the path of the not perfectly cautious reader as a beartrap in that of a cheerful weekend rambler. I should like any such initiative as that you describe to take as axiomatic it's worth not doing that kind of thing, is what I'm trying to get across here.

cestith 9y ago

Changing the dialect is not the same as a foreign language translation. It can easily be misunderstood as the author's intent since it's the same language overall. It's copyediting something already published. As someone who grew up in Hannibal, Missouri where Sam Clemens did, let me tell ya it's still a tad diff'rent from N'York. If someone intends to "modernize" a book, particularly the dialog, they need to make it clear that it is a translation from one dialect of the language to another. They need to not credit the author those new words and say they just fixed typography. There needs to be an "as interpreted by", and that person needs the blame by name.