Posts matching to translatable
Translatable but Debatable - זיקה
“Meteors frequently fall to this earth during earthquakes,” remarked Charles Fort the great compiler of oddities, “but that may be only by coincidence, just as offsprings so often appear after marriage...”
Hebrew provides a wondrously noncommittal word, זיקה, that Fort might have liked...
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Hebrew provides a wondrously noncommittal word, זיקה, that Fort might have liked...
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Translatable But Debatable - שלום רב and המון
Like the quality of mercy, the quantity of hello isn’t strained. That is, nobody forced the writer to choose the more formal, more expansive “shalom rav” rather than the everyday “shalom” so presumably there is an intentional difference worth translating.
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Translatable But Debatable - Teken
The Academy of the Hebrew Language lists sixty phrases including the word תקן, and in more than fifty of them the translation uses "standard." But reader Jonathan Danilowitz points out that there is “trouble when it refers to the number of employees for a certain task — ‘standard’ doesn't work— or for the time allowed for something, or quantities for various purposes.”
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Translatable but Debatable: גיבוש, לגבש
At the convention, when someone at the microphone remarked on the overuse of "crystallize" as a translation for gibush, a British-accented shout came from somewhere in the audience, “Formulate!”
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Translatable but Debatable מערך
A conscientious company had appointed a safety warden for each department, it considered them collectively a מערך in Hebrew, and it needed a translation. The dictionaries offer “disposition” and “formation,” but those words lean too much toward the positioning and not enough toward the people and their mission.
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Translatable but Debatable גורם
I was in the office of a hi-tech CEO some time ago when a phone call came in from a vendor of translation software. The CEO listened only a few seconds before interrupting the vendor: “How does it translate הגורם המבצע?” he asked. I was impressed that he had such a challenge at the ready.
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Translatable but Debatable ביצוע, לבצע
As the champion high-jumper clears the bar, the sportscaster cries out: איזה ביצוע! — which is to say, what a thing-doing. The English language has some theoretically fine translations for ביצוע, but connotations are a problem. You could say what an accomplishment, but that would express the connotation that he did something difficult, not that he did it well or elegantly.
This series of columns will be presenting one hard-to-translate Hebrew word at a time for discussion, and we’ll start with ביצוע (or לבצע).
You’re encouraged to add your comments at the end of the column, but please stick to the word currently under discussion. One word will likely remind you of another, but if you’d like to discuss another word, please write to me at Elephant — whystyle@elephant.org.il — and I’ll present it with due credit in a future column. That way, we can not only conduct a nicely focused discussion but also leave behind a useful archive for future reference, one word at a time.
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This series of columns will be presenting one hard-to-translate Hebrew word at a time for discussion, and we’ll start with ביצוע (or לבצע).
You’re encouraged to add your comments at the end of the column, but please stick to the word currently under discussion. One word will likely remind you of another, but if you’d like to discuss another word, please write to me at Elephant — whystyle@elephant.org.il — and I’ll present it with due credit in a future column. That way, we can not only conduct a nicely focused discussion but also leave behind a useful archive for future reference, one word at a time.
Read more...
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