Khrustit pod nogami: best translation?

[John Dunn]

The original image is pretty silly (something you may not want to pass on to the supplier of the source text), so I suppose you have free rein, but I am not totally sure about your proposed translation.  The problem is not so much that it is untrue (fibre optic doesn''t crunch beneath our feet either, and nor have I ever heard anyone say that it does), but that it inverts the spatial relationship between us and the cables: if fibre optic grew on trees it wouldn't be serving its intended purpose.  It also, rather more subtly, takes from the city to the country, unless, of course, you have the good fortune to live in the sort of city that has tree-lined streets.

I did wonder about '... where the city streets are paved with fibre optic cable', which in some ways is close to the original, since if they were so paved, the stuff would crunch beneath our feet, but it still sounds odd to me.  If the choice were mine, I would therefore go for:  '... where rivers of fibre optic cable run beneath the city streets', which, if nothing else, preserves the spatial relationship.  But you may well have come up with something better in the meantime.

John Dunn.

  

________________________________________
From: SEELANGS: Slavic & East European Languages and Literatures list [SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu] On Behalf Of Paul B. Gallagher [paulbg at PBG-TRANSLATIONS.COM]
Sent: 18 November 2011 19:32
To: SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu
Subject: [SEELANGS] Khrustit pod nogami: best translation?

In a piece on satellite communications, my source text says:

Даже в высокоразвитых США и Западной Европе, где стекло, как говорят,
хрустит под ногами, ...

My proposed translation:

Even in the highly developed United States and Western Europe, where
fiber, as they say, grows on trees, ...

What say you? Like/dislike? Alternatives if you dislike it?

Thanks.

--
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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