Translation query

[William Ryan]

All the suggestions so far have assumed that US usage, 'country' or 
otherwise, is the only option. This is, of course, one of the problems 
of translating into idiomatic varieties of 'English' - what works in one 
part of the globe doesn't elsewhere. This is one reason why many 
translators faced with translating very colloquial or dialect texts opt 
for a bland neutral translation - it may help sales in a global market.

In London, England, uneducated English for 'theatre' would be 'featre', 
in which the last syllable is usually a glottal stop. A parody on an 
Australian blog of the definitely prostonarodnyi, but as far as I know 
not criminal, English television cook and 'healthy-eating' campaigner, 
Jamie Oliver, hated by British schoolchildren, includes the following:

    Gawd, I love doin' them stage shows. What a larf that is! Who'd a
    thought, right, that a load o' people would pay good money to go see
    some geezer have a cook-up in a bleedin' featre. What a load o' old
    codswallop! And there they all sit, thinkin' they're gettin' a good
    old message about healthy eatin'.


An alternative UK slightly dated pronunciation, which to my aging and 
originally working-class ear sounds would-be posh, is 'theEtter', with 
second syllable stress (I find in another blog: 'cinima is theetter').

Will Ryan


trubikhina at AOL.COM wrote:
>   Hi,
>  
>  I am translating a review of an early futurist art exhibition for a publication. One of the dismissive descriptions that the author is using is "kiyater," which is the "prostonarodnoe" or criminal slang word for "teatr" (theater). It is used ironically obviously, and such use of "kiyater" can also be encountered in satirical pieces by Teffi or in the actual or stylized speech of Gilyarovsky's criminal characters. What would be a distorted English word that an uneducated person of that time (late 19th-early 20th century) might have used?
>  
>  Thank you,
>  
>  
>   
>  Julia Trubikhina
>  
>  Assistant Professor of Russian
>  Russian Program Coordinator
>  Department of Modern Languages and Literatures
>  Montclair State University
>  Dickson Hall, Room 138
>  Montclair, NJ 07043
>  
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-- 

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Emeritus Professor W. F. Ryan FBA, FSA
Warburg Institute
(School of Advanced Study, University of London)
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