8 ms·

The editors are not being puritanical. They're trying to illustrate to him that his writing (when read by an American) is adding context that he may not be tryi

by a2tech 4y ago

The editors are not being puritanical. They're trying to illustrate to him that his writing (when read by an American) is adding context that he may not be trying to add. For example, the bad parenting example at the bottom. He clearly illustrates that the author is simply capturing a scene as he imagines it, but the modern interpretation of an adult smoking and drinking in front of their child in the middle of the day is going to be interpreted as them being bad parents. If thats what he means to express, no one is going to complain about the inclusion of those details. If he doesn't WANT them to be cast as bad parents, don't include those details because they're not helping with the scene.

A4ET8a8uTh0 4y ago
Hard disagree. One of my earliest memories is my parents having breakfast that consisted of coffee and a cloud of smoke. If by puritanical we understand the mores inherited by Americans from Puritans then this absolutely qualifies. Unless the goal is to make the sentence palatable to Americans only, it could be understood as editing to make sure the author's point is preserved, but otherwise it is merely hiding what some believe life "should" look like.
- rrwo 4y ago
  Yes. And even if it's "bad parenting" why can't someone write a scene where this casual bad behaviour happens in the background, without having to explicitly point it out as bad?
moron4hire 4y ago
With what we've known about 2nd hand smoke for decades now, I think we can universally say smoking in front of your kids is bad parenting. So it's a really interesting example, what it says about the author that they don't think they are portraying bad parenting. And is it just an American thing? I haven't noticed that English, Irish, or Scottish people smoke all that much. But visiting Germany and seeing the blase attitude towards public smoking was definitely a culture shock.
- jefftk 4y ago
  > With what we've known about 2nd hand smoke for decades now, I think we can universally say smoking in front of your kids is bad parenting. Is spending time with your kids in front of the fireplace similarly bad parenting? Because the health effects of an open fire indoors are worse.
  - throwaway27727 4y ago
    But it's not viewed as bad, which is the point here.
  - lukas099 4y ago
    My unconscious judgement is that the smoker is someone who does this all the time (which might not be true) and the fireplace-user is just lighting a fireplace as a special occasion (also not necessarily true). So if I see a scene of a parent smoking, I will judge them as a bad parent, but not really the fireplace user. To answer your actual question, yes, doing something that is worse than smoking near your kids is bad parenting (unless it's a rare enough event to cause negligible harm).
  - moron4hire 4y ago
    I'm confused. That's... not how fireplaces work. The exhaust goes up the chimney, not into the room. The heat in the room is radiant heat from the bricks in the chimney. Also, how is one other (potentially bad or not) activity germain to the one being discussed? What about clowns? What about how Swedish fish candies are made?
    - jefftk 4y ago
      > The exhaust goes up the chimney, not into the room. Most of it, yes, but there's still a very large increase in particles in the air, far more than when smoking. > how is one other (potentially bad or not) activity germain to the one being discussed? My parent was saying "given the health effects, you should not smoke in front of your children". I was asking how they squared this with an activity with much larger health effects that I suspect they think is fine to do with your kids.
manuel_w 4y ago
> The editors are not being puritanical. They're trying to illustrate to him that his writing (when read by an American) is adding context that he may not be trying to add. And why is that? Because Americans are puritanical. > but the modern interpretation of an adult smoking and drinking in front of their child in the middle of the day is going to be interpreted as them being bad parents. For you (American?) it's the Modern interpretation while for others it might just be the American interpretation. --- I think it's just hard for people when being a product of a certain culture/society to see how said culture/society looks from the outside.
- ar_lan 4y ago
  Imagine the existence + massiveness of Hollywood and still believing Americans, as a general default, are puritanical. > For you (American?) it's the Modern interpretation while for others it might just be the American interpretation. Where does this come from? This clearly isn't accurate for the majority of America. Maybe back in the 50s - but that was also 70 years ago.
  - exq 4y ago
    Compared to what's available on TV in western Europe, Hollywood is much more reserved. They may not be puritanical, but most of the religious right in America absolutely are, and they make up a large and loud majority. Janet Jacksons tassled nipple resulted in national controversy and outrage! Laws were passed because of it. BECAUSE OF A NIPPLE! People were screeching just a few weeks ago that Disney had ~24 frames of an animated married lesbian couple kiss, as if having a kid see someone give a quick peck to their partner will turn them into a flaming homosexual or want to switch genders. We've come a long way here in usa, but we've got a ways to go.
    - birdyrooster 4y ago
      The government censors porn from the internet in a country in Western Europe. Oh wait nvm that isn’t Europe anymore.
watwut 4y ago
This is literally the sort of thing translations should not modify.
pier25 4y ago
I can see the argument for smoking... but why would anyone think someone is a bad parent for drinking a beer during the day? A lot of people in Europe drink a beer or glass of wine when having lunch. It's completely normal.
- elzbardico 4y ago
  Well, Americans are really puritanical, even in the left there's always some undercurrent of moral vigilance, only the taboos change.
- samatman 4y ago
  Different customs, different nuance. It's not unheard of to drink with lunch in the US, but it isn't common in most subcultures. The whole concept of "happy hour" involves immediately after work being the accepted time for daily drinkers to start. Americans on the whole drink rather less, and have more teetotalers. The easier thing to do is edit the beer out or replace it with coffee or soda, because the message the mid-day beer sends is in fact a parent who drinks too much in front of the kids. An American with no experience of European culture might be startled that everyone drinks at lunchtime, but wouldn't consider a European, or American, who has a beer with lunch, to be degenerate or alcoholic. A round of drinks during a business lunch is commonplace, some places it's a Friday thing. What it isn't is totally unremarkable. So as the exception rather than the norm, including this detail in a fictional context does send a different message. The editor is probably right to cut that line in translation.
  - mola 4y ago
    Maybe if these things weren't edited Americans will learn to know other cultures and norms....
    - kevinventullo 4y ago
      Surprised I had to scroll this far to find this point. The ramifications of censorship stretch beyond interpretation of the book itself. Cultural norms are partially established by media, so by censoring this one is in fact reinforcing the puritanical norms.
rrwo 4y ago
You should be able to write about a scene without moralising or having to give an origin story or explanation for behaviour. The need to do this in American movies, TV and books ruins a story. There is a reason that Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer was published in France.
- ummonk 4y ago
  No the point is that Americans will think you're moralizing even when you don't intend to moralize. It's like portraying a character kicking a puppy, when the author comes from a culture where kicking puppies is just normal everyday behavior.
  - rrwo 4y ago
    Americans can handle complicated stories with ambiguity and no clear good v evil. But there are loud camps of culture warriors who raise a fuss if it's not "safe for kids" and a whole industry of grifters who amplify this, because getting people angry improves their TV ratings and the political campaign funds. There are a lot of managers in the arts and culture industry (editors, producers, museum directors etc) who are rarely rewarded but often punished for resisting the culture warriors.
skybrian 4y ago
Perhaps this detail should stay in to show a difference between (some) American and (some) European sensibilities? There's a question of how familiar or unfamiliar a story should seem when it's set in a time and place that's different from what the reader is familiar with. Do you emphasize the differences or hide them? Maybe you add a footnote? But this assumes the reader needs a footnote. It's a way of highlighting the distance between the reader and the story setting. Cultural changes are like that. As someone who reads in part to find out about cultural differences, I think that maybe stories shouldn't seem too familiar, and I like footnotes and asides. Perhaps others will think them distracting, though.
- whimsicalism 4y ago
  Perhaps Europeans also don't realize how much more common smoking is in Europe than in the states?
  - wongarsu 4y ago
    Probably not, but isn't the huge difference in smoking habits all the more reason to include it in a story set in Europe?

by a2tech 4y ago

A4ET8a8uTh0 4y ago

Hard disagree. One of my earliest memories is my parents having breakfast that consisted of coffee and a cloud of smoke. If by puritanical we understand the mores inherited by Americans from Puritans then this absolutely qualifies. Unless the goal is to make the sentence palatable to Americans only, it could be understood as editing to make sure the author's point is preserved, but otherwise it is merely hiding what some believe life "should" look like.

rrwo 4y ago
Yes. And even if it's "bad parenting" why can't someone write a scene where this casual bad behaviour happens in the background, without having to explicitly point it out as bad?

moron4hire 4y ago

With what we've known about 2nd hand smoke for decades now, I think we can universally say smoking in front of your kids is bad parenting. So it's a really interesting example, what it says about the author that they don't think they are portraying bad parenting. And is it just an American thing? I haven't noticed that English, Irish, or Scottish people smoke all that much. But visiting Germany and seeing the blase attitude towards public smoking was definitely a culture shock.

jefftk 4y ago
> With what we've known about 2nd hand smoke for decades now, I think we can universally say smoking in front of your kids is bad parenting. Is spending time with your kids in front of the fireplace similarly bad parenting? Because the health effects of an open fire indoors are worse.
- throwaway27727 4y ago
  But it's not viewed as bad, which is the point here.
- lukas099 4y ago
  My unconscious judgement is that the smoker is someone who does this all the time (which might not be true) and the fireplace-user is just lighting a fireplace as a special occasion (also not necessarily true). So if I see a scene of a parent smoking, I will judge them as a bad parent, but not really the fireplace user. To answer your actual question, yes, doing something that is worse than smoking near your kids is bad parenting (unless it's a rare enough event to cause negligible harm).
- moron4hire 4y ago
  I'm confused. That's... not how fireplaces work. The exhaust goes up the chimney, not into the room. The heat in the room is radiant heat from the bricks in the chimney. Also, how is one other (potentially bad or not) activity germain to the one being discussed? What about clowns? What about how Swedish fish candies are made?
  - jefftk 4y ago
    > The exhaust goes up the chimney, not into the room. Most of it, yes, but there's still a very large increase in particles in the air, far more than when smoking. > how is one other (potentially bad or not) activity germain to the one being discussed? My parent was saying "given the health effects, you should not smoke in front of your children". I was asking how they squared this with an activity with much larger health effects that I suspect they think is fine to do with your kids.

manuel_w 4y ago

> The editors are not being puritanical. They're trying to illustrate to him that his writing (when read by an American) is adding context that he may not be trying to add. And why is that? Because Americans are puritanical. > but the modern interpretation of an adult smoking and drinking in front of their child in the middle of the day is going to be interpreted as them being bad parents. For you (American?) it's the Modern interpretation while for others it might just be the American interpretation. --- I think it's just hard for people when being a product of a certain culture/society to see how said culture/society looks from the outside.

ar_lan 4y ago
Imagine the existence + massiveness of Hollywood and still believing Americans, as a general default, are puritanical. > For you (American?) it's the Modern interpretation while for others it might just be the American interpretation. Where does this come from? This clearly isn't accurate for the majority of America. Maybe back in the 50s - but that was also 70 years ago.
- exq 4y ago
  Compared to what's available on TV in western Europe, Hollywood is much more reserved. They may not be puritanical, but most of the religious right in America absolutely are, and they make up a large and loud majority. Janet Jacksons tassled nipple resulted in national controversy and outrage! Laws were passed because of it. BECAUSE OF A NIPPLE! People were screeching just a few weeks ago that Disney had ~24 frames of an animated married lesbian couple kiss, as if having a kid see someone give a quick peck to their partner will turn them into a flaming homosexual or want to switch genders. We've come a long way here in usa, but we've got a ways to go.
  - birdyrooster 4y ago
    The government censors porn from the internet in a country in Western Europe. Oh wait nvm that isn’t Europe anymore.

watwut 4y ago

This is literally the sort of thing translations should not modify.

pier25 4y ago

I can see the argument for smoking... but why would anyone think someone is a bad parent for drinking a beer during the day? A lot of people in Europe drink a beer or glass of wine when having lunch. It's completely normal.

elzbardico 4y ago
Well, Americans are really puritanical, even in the left there's always some undercurrent of moral vigilance, only the taboos change.
samatman 4y ago
Different customs, different nuance. It's not unheard of to drink with lunch in the US, but it isn't common in most subcultures. The whole concept of "happy hour" involves immediately after work being the accepted time for daily drinkers to start. Americans on the whole drink rather less, and have more teetotalers. The easier thing to do is edit the beer out or replace it with coffee or soda, because the message the mid-day beer sends is in fact a parent who drinks too much in front of the kids. An American with no experience of European culture might be startled that everyone drinks at lunchtime, but wouldn't consider a European, or American, who has a beer with lunch, to be degenerate or alcoholic. A round of drinks during a business lunch is commonplace, some places it's a Friday thing. What it isn't is totally unremarkable. So as the exception rather than the norm, including this detail in a fictional context does send a different message. The editor is probably right to cut that line in translation.
- mola 4y ago
  Maybe if these things weren't edited Americans will learn to know other cultures and norms....
  - kevinventullo 4y ago
    Surprised I had to scroll this far to find this point. The ramifications of censorship stretch beyond interpretation of the book itself. Cultural norms are partially established by media, so by censoring this one is in fact reinforcing the puritanical norms.

rrwo 4y ago

You should be able to write about a scene without moralising or having to give an origin story or explanation for behaviour. The need to do this in American movies, TV and books ruins a story. There is a reason that Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer was published in France.

ummonk 4y ago
No the point is that Americans will think you're moralizing even when you don't intend to moralize. It's like portraying a character kicking a puppy, when the author comes from a culture where kicking puppies is just normal everyday behavior.
- rrwo 4y ago
  Americans can handle complicated stories with ambiguity and no clear good v evil. But there are loud camps of culture warriors who raise a fuss if it's not "safe for kids" and a whole industry of grifters who amplify this, because getting people angry improves their TV ratings and the political campaign funds. There are a lot of managers in the arts and culture industry (editors, producers, museum directors etc) who are rarely rewarded but often punished for resisting the culture warriors.

skybrian 4y ago

Perhaps this detail should stay in to show a difference between (some) American and (some) European sensibilities? There's a question of how familiar or unfamiliar a story should seem when it's set in a time and place that's different from what the reader is familiar with. Do you emphasize the differences or hide them? Maybe you add a footnote? But this assumes the reader needs a footnote. It's a way of highlighting the distance between the reader and the story setting. Cultural changes are like that. As someone who reads in part to find out about cultural differences, I think that maybe stories shouldn't seem too familiar, and I like footnotes and asides. Perhaps others will think them distracting, though.

whimsicalism 4y ago
Perhaps Europeans also don't realize how much more common smoking is in Europe than in the states?
- wongarsu 4y ago
  Probably not, but isn't the huge difference in smoking habits all the more reason to include it in a story set in Europe?