TIME quoting Putin

[imwitty]

Paul,

You are right: I just found the original interview in the Russian newspaper
"Kommersant". I don't know Chinese, but German and Spanish translations are
almost correct comparing to the translation provided by "Time" in its
"Verbatim" section -- which definitely isn't verbatim.

I said "almost", because all three translations use the word "head" (Kopf,
cabeza). Putin actually used "bashka" (the stress on the second "a") like
you would use "mug" instead of "face." It is the common parlance equivalent
of the Russian word "golova" -- "head" -- (the stress on "a".)

Probably in this case "head" might be replaced with "bean"?

Also, I personally would use instead of "truncheon" something like "club",
"bat", or "billy club", but I don't work for "Time"... (;'-)))

Lora

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On Wed, Sep 8, 2010 at 10:14 AM, Paul Frank <paulfrank at post.harvard.edu>wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Paul Frank <paulfrank at POST.HARVARD.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: TIME quoting Putin
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Wed, Sep 8, 2010 at 6:55 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> > Sender: Â  Â  Â  American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster: Â  Â  Â  Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> > Subject: Â  Â  Â TIME quoting Putin
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > "You will be beaten _upside the head_ with a truncheon."
> >
> >
> > I wonder how that was expressed in the Russian original! ;-)
> >
> > --
> > -Wilson
>
> I don't speak Russian but this sounds like a bad translation for
> "you'll beaten over the head with a truncheon." The German press is
> reporting "you'll be beaten over the head with a truncheon" ("Sie
> werden mit einem Knüppel auf den Kopf geschlagen werden"). And so is
> the Spanish press ("recibirán en la cabeza un golpe con una porra").
> And the Chinese-language press ("å ¯èƒ½å°‡è¢«è­¦æ£ æ‰“åˆ°é ­"). Newspapers
> publish all
> sorts of bad translations.
>
> Paul
>
> Paul Frank
> Translator
> German, French, Italian > English
> paulfrank at post.harvard.edu
> paul.frank at bfs.admin.ch
>
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