Library vocabulary

[John Langran]

We are British, not Britons. In most of our libraries most books are for 
borrowing. The libraries are "lending libraries". You can "borrow books". Or 
"take them out". Most libraries have a smaller "reference section" with 
books that you cannot take out.

You can take books out for a couple of weeks, then you get fined if you 
forget to return them.

Paid for mainly by local taxes, I think.

John Langran
www.ruslan.co.uk




----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Paul B. Gallagher" <paulbg at PBG-TRANSLATIONS.COM>
To: <SEELANGS at BAMA.UA.EDU>
Sent: Monday, January 21, 2008 7:37 PM
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] Library vocabulary


> Misha Angelovskiy wrote:
>
>> There's a magical English designation of "circulating" to refer to
>> these books.  (As opposed to reference items that cannot be taken out
>> of the library.)  To translate the German phrase you can go with
>> something as wordy as:
>>
>> You may borrow these books, You may check these books out;
>>
>> or simply label the shelves as
>>
>> Circulating
>>
>> or something along those lines.
>>
>> NB: I believe all these suggestion are acceptable in Standard
>> American English, not sure if the Britons would say them differently.
>> And I really hope that I didn't misunderstand the German phrase--it's
>> not mitnehmen to keep and never to return, is it?
>
> This is a situation where we need a retronym. The assumption in most 
> American libraries unless you have reason to think otherwise is that all 
> books circulate. So you generally see signs in a few small areas saying 
> that assumption is unwarranted ("reference," etc.), while the rest are 
> unmarked.
>
> -- 
> War doesn't determine who's right, just who's left.
> --
> Paul B. Gallagher
> pbg translations, inc.
> "Russian Translations That Read Like Originals"
> http://pbg-translations.com
>
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