Okay. You (whoever that includes) win. Make the English "three."
7 days ago
"He might have said “en pocas palabras” but decided, rightly, that giving the actual number of words is pithier."
So you must sacrifice the pithiness. Isn't that part of the message?
I considered the use of something that simply avoided the specific number for the English translation. But my previous thought was limited to translating "cuatro" to "three."
Would anyone here argue for that?
1 week ago
More seriously, I thought about the translation going from a 4-word Spanish phrase to a 3-word English phrase as uncontroversial because it best conveyed the intended meaning. But with the preceding reference to the number words in the phrase, going from "cuatro" to "three" wouldn't convey the intended meaning. It's just no longer the correct number of words after the translation.
I don't know if there's a convention for translating in that kind of situation, but somehow translating a word that has a more or less perfect analog for the intended meaning in another language to a different word seems fundamentally wrong to me. Words for numbers are about as exact in meaning as language can manage. There's no selecting for sense or feeling or inference.
Four is just f**king four, right?
1 week ago
This is such a square bunch on this blog. The Spanish play it fast and loose when it comes to counting. Just relax and go with it.
1 week ago
Full disclosure: My brain went straight to Napoleon Dynamite.
Okay. You (whoever that includes) win. Make the English "three."
"He might have said “en pocas palabras” but decided, rightly, that giving the actual number of words is pithier."
So you must sacrifice the pithiness. Isn't that part of the message?
I considered the use of something that simply avoided the specific number for the English translation. But my previous thought was limited to translating "cuatro" to "three."
Would anyone here argue for that?
More seriously, I thought about the translation going from a 4-word Spanish phrase to a 3-word English phrase as uncontroversial because it best conveyed the intended meaning. But with the preceding reference to the number words in the phrase, going from "cuatro" to "three" wouldn't convey the intended meaning. It's just no longer the correct number of words after the translation.
I don't know if there's a convention for translating in that kind of situation, but somehow translating a word that has a more or less perfect analog for the intended meaning in another language to a different word seems fundamentally wrong to me. Words for numbers are about as exact in meaning as language can manage. There's no selecting for sense or feeling or inference.
Four is just f**king four, right?
This is such a square bunch on this blog. The Spanish play it fast and loose when it comes to counting. Just relax and go with it.
Full disclosure: My brain went straight to Napoleon Dynamite.