[Lexicog] Time is money?

[Fritz Goerling]

Dear Hayim,

 

The German proverb is: “Morgen morgen, nur nicht heute, sagen alle faulen
Leute” = Tomorrow, tomorrow, not today, that is what all lazy people say.”
Well, the stereotype about Germans is that they are hard-working. But there
are Germans and Germans 
 The Bible says in Proverbs “Go to the ant, you
sluggard, and watch its ways, so that you become wise.” The bit about
Spanish “mañana” and Arab “bukara” does not mean that those nationalities
are lazy. It’s just a different – maybe healthier – philosophy. I have lived
long enough in tropical Africa and arid zones of  Africa to know that these
people are not lazy. In order to survive here, one just needs a long siesta,
myself included 


 

Greetings from hot and humid Dakar in Senegal,

where I am just about to take my siesta,

 

Fritz

Dear Fritz:

After reding your message it came to my mind that Germam 'morgen' also does
not have the same sense of urgency like in  Arabic.
Judge  youself, contemplating on proverbial words:

Morgen morgen, nur noch heute.

Hayim Y. Sheynin

Fritz Goerling <Fritz_Goerling at sil.org> wrote:

A while ago we had a discussion on the most common nouns in the English
lang! uage.

“Time” was on top. I think that is revealing. George Lakoff and Mark Johnson
considered in “Metaphors we live by” (2003)

the metaphorical concept TIME IS MONEY as is reflected in contemporary
English, analyzing the following examples:

 

You are WASTING my time.

The gadget will SAVE you hours.

I don’t HAVE the time to GIVE you.

How do you SPEND your time these days?

That flat tire COST me an hour.

I’ve INVESTED a lot of time in her.

I don’t HAVE  ENOUGH time to SPARE for that.

You’re RUNNING OUT of time.

 

To lose, use, put aside, budget time are other expressions.

All of them show TIME AS MONEY, TIME AS A LIMITED RESOURCE, and TIME AS A
VALUABLE COMMODITY.

 

The authors are right by saying that these conceptualizations are tied to
certain Western cultures, and that there are cultures where time is none of
these things or is defined differently.

 

You might know the joke about the Mexican and the Arab. The Mexican says to
the Arab, “I hear you have a word for tomorrow that’s similar to our word
mañana.”

“Yes,” replies the Arab. “Bukara. But it doesn’t have the same sense of
urgency.”

 

Well, what about strongly time-oriented nationalities like Americans,
northern Europeans (Germans, Swedes)? All who have travelled know about
cultural clashes in the area of different concepts of punctuality and time.

 

What then are the implications for dictionary-making, say in a bilingual
dictionary ‘English-language X//language X-English’?

How are different concepts of time handled vice versa? In an
‘English-German//German-English’ dictionary it might be relatively easy to
find equivalent or similar expressions. But how about a bililingual
dictionary ‘English-language X which was just reduced to writing’ and vice
versa? 

 

Fritz Goerling

 

 

  

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