piatiknizhie in English Pentalogy

[Robert Chandler]

This is beautifully put, both witty and wise.  For the main part, it is a
translator's duty to be truthful, but occasionally (perhaps especially in
oral interpreting) there may be some higher obligation.

R.




> The translation is poor, of course, but the original locution is even
> "poorer". Pentaptych sounds perfectly adequate but doesn't make me any happier
> about the original expression. Sometimes a perfect translation lays bare the
> badness of the original, thereby expressing condescension--in this case,
> towards Russian colleagues who use a word in such a bad taste so liberally...
> I would opt for covering up for my colleagues' bad taste. Although neither
> ethnically Russian nor even a citizen of Russia, I feel somewhat patriotic
> when it comes to these matters. It is like covering up the body of Noah, if he
> happens to be your father.
> o.m.
> ____________
> Olga Meerson wrote:
> 
>> Pentalogy certainly sounds good--much better than piatiknizhie does
>> in Russian!
> 
> In that case, it's a poor translation. ;-)
> 
> I'm leaning toward "pentaptych," which comes across as an obscure,
> arcane term devised by someone trying to show off; it's not an everyday
> word like "diptych." (well, it /would/ be an everyday word if you were
> an artist...)
> 
> I actually had a chat with an artist a couple of months ago on this very
> question:
> "You know what a diptych is, and a triptych, right?"
> "Sure..."
> "OK, so what do you say if there are four, or five,
> or six panels?"
> "Um, er, uh, ... hunh. I don't know. Let me think..."
> He finally settled on "five-panel installation," but he wasn't very
> happy with it.

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