translation question

[Jack Kollmann]

One of my favorite funny translations:  "wet sheep" for "hydraulic ram" 
("gidravlicheskii taran") -- mentioned years ago by Ned Keenan.
JK


At 10:42 PM 3/22/2006, you wrote:


>On the funny translations side, recent ones that spring to mind were
>"landing places" (for posadochniye mesta) and the persistent use of
>"refuelling" on a restaurant menu (for zapravka).
>
>PM
>
>
>On 23/03/06, Jack Kollmann <jack.kollmann at stanford.edu> wrote:
> >
> > Nancy,
> >
> >          I like "sustenance," although each time I turn to a translation
> > project, I find myself re-thinking (over-thinking?) how best to translate
> > something like this.
> >
> >          On the (different) subject of entertaining translation goofs,
> > look
> > up Benjamin Uroff's review article in Slavic Review (JSTOR), March 1969,
> > pp. 125-127, of a translated publication of a 1955 Soviet "History of
> > Russian Economic Thought:  Ninth Through Eighteenth Centuries," wherein
> > Uroff notes errors like "thoughtful clerk" for "dumnyi d'iak" (state
> > secretary) and "food money" for "pishchal'nye dengi" (taxes for the
> > purchase of firearms, "pishchali").  It's a fun read, and disturbing,
> > because we are all capable of committing slightly off dictionary
> > translations, false derivatives, anachronisms, etc.
> >
> > Jack Kollmann
> > Stanford University
> >

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