Versatility?

[Alois Heuboeck]

"Wuetschwunder" - if I may venture a conjecture: perhaps a double typo 
for "Quetschwunde"?

Best wishes,
Alois



On 20/03/2011 07:36, alex gross wrote:
> Dear Wolfgang,
>
> Thanks so much for your query. The obvious source in this interview is
> the interviewer herself, at that time a noted medical translator named
> Sandra Celt. I doubt if she would have used the term if she had not just
> come across it in a medical text she had been translating. Many odd
> terms can crop up in such texts, though none of them detract from the
> reality that German medical terms are often more readily tranparent to
> their speeakers than English ones are.
>
> Very best!
>
> alex
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Wolfgang Schulze"
> <W.Schulze at lrz.uni-muenchen.de>
> To: "alex gross" <language at sprynet.com>
> Cc: <FUNKNET at listserv.rice.edu>
> Sent: Saturday, March 19, 2011 8:14 AM
> Subject: Re: [FUNKNET] Versatility?
>
>
>> Dear Alex,
>> let me just ask one thing: Where did you get the 'German' word
>> "Wuetschwunder" (for contusion ?) from? Being a native of German, I've
>> never heard this term, and I doubt whether it's current among German
>> children either. Any reference for this word? By the way: The German
>> equivalent of contusion would be 'Prellung, Erguss, Quetschung',
>> coming close to English bruise.
>> Best,
>> Wolfgang
>>
>>
>> Am 19.03.2011 10:39, schrieb alex gross:
>>> Suspect some languages may have problems becoming more versatile due
>>> to unconscious esthetic factors, for instance a preference in English
>>> for high-flown latinate names over more basic equivalents, even when
>>> such equivalents might be theoretically available. Which of course
>>> can lead to greater "complexity," though not in a positive way. Gave
>>> some examples of this in a 1987 interview on translating medical
>>> terms across Chinese, English, and German:
>>>
>>> "A. Take the two bones in our lower arm. The only names we have for
>>> them today are ulna and radius. These are the 'scientific names,' the
>>> ones medical people--and few others--learn. Those bones are important
>>> to you every day, yet you have no everyday way of referring to them
>>> at all. But there is clear evidence from historical linguistics that
>>> these bones once had other names. The ulna was once called the 'el,'
>>> the radius possibly something like the 'spoke.' We know about the
>>> 'el' from Seventeenth Century poetry (maid to lover: 'if I give you
>>> an inch, you'll soon take an el') but also from modern German, where
>>> the words are die Elle and die Speiche."
>>>
>>> "Even in modern English the place where the 'el' makes a bend or
>>> 'bow' (sich beugt) is called the elbow. In Chinese these words
>>> translate as foot-measure bone (close to the meaning of 'el') and
>>> rowing bone. All bones and all locations in the body have similar
>>> down-to-earth names in Chinese. Which people is likely to be on
>>> better terms with their bodies--one that has names such as these or
>>> one where everything is linguistically off-limits except to doctors?
>>> German continues to a better job here even today with such words as
>>> Gehirnhautentzündung and Harnröhre for meningitis and urethra.
>>>
>>> "Q. It also occurs to me that a German child could understand words
>>> like Riss- und Wuetschwunder, whereas an English-speaking child would
>>> not understand 'lacerations and contusions.'"
>>>
>>> Full text of this piece is available at:
>>>
>>> http://language.home.sprynet.com/lingdex/chinmed.htm#totop
>>>
>>> All the best to everyone!
>>>
>>> alex
>>>
>>>
>>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Tahir Wood" <twood at uwc.ac.za>
>>> To: <FUNKNET at listserv.rice.edu>
>>> Sent: Friday, March 18, 2011 8:07 AM
>>> Subject: [FUNKNET] Versatility?
>>>
>>>
>>> In the wake of all this discussion about increasing complexity, I
>>> wonder if anyone here has thoughts on versatility. Does language
>>> become increasingly versatile?
>>> Tahir
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> All Email originating from UWC is covered by disclaimer
>>>> http://www.uwc.ac.za/portal
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> ----------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> *Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Schulze *
>>
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>>
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