Keskustelujen arkisto

Hi Folks,

From: Kriton Kyrimis <(Email removed)>
>On 31-Jan-98, David B. Fenske wrote:
>> maybe a few micrometers, or nanometers (OK, how many of
>> you metric junkies know those ones?)... picometers?
>
>micrometer = 10^-6 meters
>nanometer = 10^-9 meters
>picometer = 10^-12 meters
>
>You would have cornered me if you had asked about attometers and
>femtometers (10^-15 and 10^-18, but I don't remember which is which),
>probably because I've never had to use such small units).

Seems to me rather due to the fact that those prefixes do not descend
from Greek (Ancient Greek, that is), but from Norwegian (femto = 15,
atto = 18; may not have slipped your attention if you put some studies
in Indo-European phonetic studies [or have a Norwegian as lecturer of
physics]).
After all, for a microbiologist like me picounits (yes, metric ones) are
most common.

>:-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-)
:-)
Same emoticons count for me. That's all folks

Klaus
(Email removed)

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--------------------------------
End of Disney comics Digest V98 Issue #41
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I've mentioned this before, but... I have a Swedish album of Hagar the Horrible
reprints where most strips are translated into Swedish but those with
untranslatable puns are left in English with footnotes added to explain the
gag. One I remember had Hagar in Rome looking at a marble pillar with chatty
graffitti scrawled on it -- the gag was that this was a _gossip column_. This
is a translator's nightmare -- the illustrated pun that only works in the
original language. The Hagar translator was allowed to leave it in English, I
suppose because the audience would be somewhat older and likely to have studied
enough English in school to follow the dialogue to some extent and appreciate
the gag once it was explained. The audience for Disney comics being younger and
not likely to have gotten very far in English, you couldn't do that.

On Feb 2, 6:07pm, Fluks, H.W. wrote:
> Subject: Phi Lambda Ypsilon Kappa Sigma to Eta Beta
> EB:
>
> >In a '66 Barks one pager (US 61), the whole gag relies on a
> >sign hanging from the wall that says "Top Wages".
>
> In the Dutch version, they *redrew* a part of the
> last panel, changing the toy into a stamp with
> a crown on it. The gag was changed to "royal
> wages".
> It's not as forced as using a footnote, and it's
> better than *not* publishing the gag...
>
In revenge, I've seen original Dutch Disney stories with illustrated Dutch puns
(usually involving money or Scrooge's bank collection) and I've even translated
one or two. All I can say is, you do what you can. There was one background gag
involving a coin suspended in a frame like a miniature Chinese gong, with
musical notes emanating from it. I forget what the Dutch caption was or what
the joke was supposed to be (something about "ringing money," I think), but I
nearly cracked my cerebrum trying to think of something in English. Then I
realized that the coin had been lettered with the number "25" and I had my
joke: "Quarter Notes". Only problem was, Gladstone's letterer neglected to
letter the caption, so that miniature gong sits mysteriously on the printed
page without an explanation.

> >there's no translation that
> >*could* be as good as the original, I'm afraid.
>
> You could almost make this a definition. In a translation,
> you always loose some of the original. And if someone
> manages to make a *better* story than the original,
> you do not call it a "translation" anymore. The re-scripting
> of Egmont stories by Gladstone in its first period
> fall into this category.

It seems to me that there are two separate but related tasks here. One is
straight translation, rendering into English (or whatever the target language
is) an accurate version of the original in the source language. The second is
rewriting for the target audience based on editorial policy, etc. The two tasks
are sometimes at odds. I've been in situations where an editor wanted an
_exact_ translation of the original (because the writer knew enough English to
spot any deviations and would complain) that was also publishable without any
rewriting or polishing necessary. This can be a case of "you can have one or
the other but not both." With Disney comics, the feeling is that an exact
translation isn't so important. The original writer doesn't own the property,
so editors in other countries are free to do whatever they have to in order to
make a story work in the local language even if it requires extensive rewriting
(or throwing out the old script altogether and writing something entirely new
to fit the existing art). The reader just wants an entertaining reading
experience that works on its own terms without having to think "Well, this
story was originally written in English, and they have an expression about how
money doesn't grow on trees while we say it doesn't grow on my back." So the
translator's mettle is proven not so much in the accurate translation but in
the quality of the rescripting. I've had discussions with various people about
this: David Gerstein has pointed out that I'm a little too chained to the
original, while I've envied him for his cheerful abandon in translations that
are free rewrites.

Then there are the one or two Disney writers whose scripts _are_ too important
to rewrite very extensively, like Barks. My heroine is Erika Fuchs, the German
translator whose translations of Barks stories are as canonical in Germany as
Barks's work itself. Her versions are a little different from Barks's
originals, but have a style of their own that has become an integral part of
the Donald Duck tradition there.

Oh, and there's one other little limitation: word-balloon and caption size.
Usually you have to fit the translated dialogue into existing word balloons in
the art, and woe unto the translator if there's some concept the source
language expresses in one word that takes the target language a long sentence
to explain because there isn't a concise translation. One of Freddy Milton's
"Gnuff" stories referred to the "Kultid" -- literally, it means "Coal Age," the
geologic era when primeval plants died, were buried, and turned into coal, but
in English it's called the "Carboniferous" era. And Freddy had all these little
itty bitty word balloons in which "Kultid" fit fine but "Carboniferous" would
burst the seams... The solution came only when I did some research and came
across the term "Coal Age" in English. It seemed to be rare and "Carboniferous"
was the preferred term, but we could still use it and not be entirely
incorrect.

In reading foreign comics for pleasure, I sometimes find myself lingering over
panels to count spaces in the word balloons to see if English-language
equivalents would fit very handily. I think it was Asterix and the Laurels of
Caesar, which I was reading in French...I know, it's already been translated
into English, so I'll never have to translate it myself, but I spent some time
trying to work out a gagline for a panel showing a legless beggar on a wheeled
cart. The original French was something like "Will you give to a very
diminished gladiator" (tres diminue), and one English joke might have been,
"Will you give to a gladiator in reduced circumstances?" These quotes are from
memory and aren't exact, but the problem was that the English was wordier than
the French and wouldn't have fit the balloon. So a little more rewriting was
necessary than just a straight translation. (Like: "Please give! I'm a little
short!" Not as elegant as "reduced circumstances," but it'd fit.) I should look
for the published English version just to see how that line was handled.
>
> >But... but... subtitles ARE footnotes...
>
> Nope. Subtitles are a synchronous translation of what is
> heard (and sometimes seen) in the other language.
> There are *no* comments or "translator's notes"
> in subtitles. (Well, not in the ones *we* are used
> to in Holland.)
>
Depends. Some of the Japanese cartoons we're getting in the US, particularly
those released by more conscientious studios, do have subtitles explaining
obscure cultural notes if they're essential to the story.

--Dwight (Delta Delta) Decker

TO: (Email removed)

Excuse my ignorance but which version of the bible are we talking about.
The damn thing has been bastardized so much, it's hard to know what's what
(can I say that). Is there any indication $crooge is a Christian? I'm
assuming with his world travels he would be more open to other influences?

King Wog Of Norwalk, the spiritual walker

ETA:
I'm working on a Fethry index now that will provide English
titles and code data on all the stories you listed the other day (as
well as a few that TOPOLINO and/or Egmont don't appear to have used).
It's taking some doing - there's some guesswork involved and I don't
want to send you an index until I've verified some theories.

EVERYONE:
In the meantime though, I should mention that now S 64008 (X
4008) does *not* seem to be the first Fethry story, even if it's the
first that was done for the overseas program. While Fethry *does* arrive
via train, the English original has no equivalent to some European
versions' comment that Donald hadn't known what Fethry looks like. In
fact, Donald is plainly so familiar with Fethry that he actually wonders
out loud about what crazy obsession Fethry has *this* time - as if we've
seen several such obsessions before. The story's title, "The Health
Nut," also implies nothing about this being the first appearance of a
major character.
Contrast this to the Strobl-drawn, non-S-coded "Donald's Buzzin'
Cousin" - which we know to have been *published* a year later and have
stated (up until now) to have been produced later, too. Now I'm not so
sure. There we have DD saying he hasn't seen Fethry since ducklinghood,
and acting totally unacquainted with Fethry's quirks when he sees them.
The story's title suggests it to be the introduction of the character.
And the artistic model Tony Strobl uses for Fethry is identical to that
in S 64008 but totally unlike that in any later S-coded Fethry story.
I'm ready to conclude that "Donald's Buzzin' Cousin" is the
first-written Fethry story, irrespective of when it was actually drawn
and published - and I suspect that it may have been the first-drawn too.
Just because Hubbard was one of the character's creators doesn't mean
that he necessarily drew the first story with him.

David Gerstein
<(Email removed)>

DON MARKSTEIN:

> Once again, I agree with your approach to translation.
> /---/ In a mass-market publication, you have to go with the
> numbers. And your first duty must ALWAYS be to the readers.

That was the first thing I had to learn when making the transition from
"fan" to "professional". I expected it, of course, but was afraid that I
would run into problems letting go of some of my lofty, idealistic views in
favor of sheer commercialism. But it turned out that I adapted quicker and
better than I feared. For one thing, there really aren't as many fundamental
differences between the publisher's goals and those of the fans as some of
us sometimes suspect. And for smaller details, such as how far we can go in
keeping Don Rosa's gags intact, it wasn't that hard to learn how to give and
take a little. Some die-hard Donaldist friends of mine (or ex-friends?!?)
may believe I'm selling my soul, but I prefer to think I can do some good to
a story once in a while...

I should point out that I'm only talking about what I know and what I do,
namely the stories. I wouldn't say a word about marketing or other such
stuff that I really don't understand at all... And mind you, I won't take
just about anything when it comes to the stories, either. I'm always a
Donaldist first and foremost... until they pay me enough to change my mind,
of course...

> A few months ago, I provoked outrage among some folks
> here, when I mentioned that I'm writing American dialog for
> Dutch Bucky Bug stories, without even SEEING the original
> wording. (I'm working from bare art with empty balloons.) How
> can I possibly do justice to the original story without even
> reading it? Well -- I DO have to follow the art, so how far from
> the story can I stray? And the point is not to create an exact
> duplicate in another language, but to entertain the reader.
> Those who are sticklers for the original should read it in Dutch.

Since you already stated that you agree with my view, it shouldn't surprise
anyone that I agree with yours. Many years ago, I remember being given an
original text in a sealed envelope with instructions only to use it in case
of emergency... My editor felt that the text was so bad, I would be able to
write something better from the empty pictures. (This was some kind of
children's book, not a regular comic.) And your job here is not far from
what I had to do, back when I was "translating" Italian comics without
knowing much Italian. Shocking or not, I'm not at all worried that your
scripts won't turn out excellent!

Stefan Dios
Malmo, Sweden

PAULO BARRETO:

> How about one googolth or one googolplexth of an inch? :-)
>

Hey, don't cheat: that's metric! One googol equals ten to the 100th power,
and one googolplex equals ten to the googolth power, so that's
a-b-s-o-l-u-t-e-l-y metric!!!

By the way, Paulo (real reason why I'm writing this), you haven't told us
yet about the Fethry-king-of undersea-world subject! Is that too a spin-off
in $crooge's newspaper?

Marco

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> Dwight Decker:
> > Dutch Christmas customs, showing their traditional St. Nicholas and
> his
> > politically incorrect assistant, Black Peter...
>
>
> Sorry... can't resist... Does he wear a peg-leg? :-D
>
>
> Well... The Coca-Cola Santa have certainly conquered the world...
> Even in Japan they are celebrating an american christmas... ;-)
>
> I just wonder just _how_ american this Santa is actually... I
> remember seein' large white-bearded men in red robes delivering
> presents as early as the 1880's in Sweden... Even though they, as I
> remember, did have the sleigh pulled by a single horse and not by
> reindeer...
>
> And I know that before santa-claus there was a vicious and mean
> billy-goat that delivered presents on christmas in sweden... ;-)
>
>
> Maybe santa is a german tradition, just like the christmas tree,
> that have been refined and turned into business by the ever venturous
> USonians... :-)
>
>
>
> Steamboat Willie
>
>
>
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