MSGID: 1:153/716.0 156817a1
REPLY: cfa0a609
CHRS: IBMPC 2
Hi, Alexander! Recently you wrote in a message to All:
ak> I am not sure I know the correct word. In Russia we
ak> use the word "a male goat" as an idiomatic sleng word
ak> meaning absence of respect, or when you have a
ak> resentment to somebody.
When I looked up "twit" in THE FREE DICTIONARY I found quite a lot
of stuff you might find useful, including definitions & synonyms. In
summary... a twit is a foolish, stupid, annoying, and/or insignificant
person. I'm guessing that is more or less what you were thinking of here. :-)
ak> Does the following story sound funny in English and
ak> can it be improved?
Yes, on both counts. Long explanation to follow... [grin].
ak> Three men from the USA delegation came to Russia and
ak> went to a big plant to sign a contract. The director
ak> sees them into his cabinet
|private office
Why not use the same verb tense throughout the story? I know we
have discussed this issue already... but a tense change in mid-paragraph,
unless the logic is obvious to me, still sounds wrong according to what I was
taught. :-Q
ak> and says to his secretary girl, "Well dear --
|female secretary
ak> one glass of cognac for me and three tea for these
ak> goats."
IOW he's such an important person he can drink alcoholic beverages
on the job without offering any to persons he regards as inferior to
himself... or at least he thinks he is. My sympathies lie with the translator
already. :-))
ak> One man from the delegation says, "two tea, please,
ak> I am a translator."
Ah... so this story is not a commentary on the status of women. But
to be fair, I'm writing as if the translator could be male or female.
On a sociological level, the translator may be thinking s/he works
as hard as (and probably gets paid less than) other folk attending this
meeting... yet, like the secretary, s/he is a highly skilled individual
without whose help these guys would be unable to do their jobs. And if s/he's
expected to talk as much as all of them do the need to wet his/her whistle may
be greater.
In English, the translator's response could be a play on words too:
* I often hear young servers nowadays saying e.g. "two coffees" or
"two teas" when they mean "two cups of [whatever]". Perhaps the
translator has noticed this phenomenon as well. Either way, two
or more generally --> pluralization of a noun or pronoun.
* When people have more than one variety of tea in stock, they may
ask which a guest prefers. My mother-in-law used to offer China
tea or India tea. I reckon that in such situations a translator
might say "One cup of each, please... I'm bilingual."
* Depending on the intonation, and on whether s/he's addressing the
secretary or the director, the translator's reply could be heard
as "to tease"... an allusion to the director's bad manners. And
s/he sets a good example by adding "please", which he didn't do.
I see the translator's response as amusing when I think of
situations in which e.g. a male teacher nearing retirement disagreed with our
principal at staff meetings from time to time. I also notice that the actual
words could be interpreted in more than one way, as is very common with jokes
in English. :-)
--- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+
* Origin: Wits' End, Vancouver CANADA (1:153/716)
SEEN-BY: 1/123 14/0 30/0 90/1 103/705 105/81 120/340 123/131 129/305
SEEN-BY: 134/100 138/146 153/105 250 757 802 7715 154/10 218/700 840
SEEN-BY: 221/1 6 226/30 227/114 702 229/424 426 664 700 1017 240/1120
SEEN-BY: 240/5832 249/206 317 261/38 282/1038 301/0 1 101 113 317/3
SEEN-BY: 322/757 335/364 342/11 200 460/58 712/848 920/1 3634/12 4500/1
SEEN-BY: 5020/1042 5058/104
PATH: 153/7715 757 221/6 301/1 229/426
|
