It's entirely possible that I should have mentioned this earlier, but I'm going out of town for a week.
NOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Sorry about that. :(
Only... it hopefully shouldn't actually affect the usual blogging schedule around here. I've pre-written a week's worth of blog posts and Blogger will obligingly post them at the appropriate times (no, you can't have them all at once, you'll ruin your appetite).
I'll also still receive all your comments by email and I'll be able to reply on my phone during the day and on my netbook in the evenings as usual. I'll just probably respond a little less than usual, because Husband insists that vacations are supposed to be romantic, or something. So it'll be up to ya'll to be extra scintillating and awesome to pick up my slack. ;)
I can't disclose where, precisely, we're going, but I can confirm that there will be a beach involved, and maybe some palm trees. Since I've spent my entire life feeling something akin to a displaced mermaid, this is very exciting for me.
Please enjoy yourselves while I'm "gone", don't burn the blog down, and feed the kitties for me, okay? I'll miss ya'll so much, except that, you know, I'll still be getting all the comments on my phone. (I love smartphones so much I want to duct-tape mine to my hand.) The Disqus Android app doesn't let me edit my comments, though, so be prepared for a higher incidence of typos than usual.
Open thread below!
31 comments:
But ... but how will we live without you?
Have fun mermaiding.
Ha, thank you. Maybe I'll learn water-bending! (Except I think I remember they live in cold regions.)
And thank goodness for technology. This is posted from my PHONE, for goodness sake. :P
I can understand the safety reasons behind why you can't tell us where you're going before the fact, but if you are comfortable with telling us after the fact, I know I'm curious, but not so curious as to want to invade your privacy. Wherever it is, have lots of fun.
Ha, well, it's not a big security secret, but I didn't want to be OH HAI LOOK AT MY PRIVILEGE. *blush*
We're going to Hawaii, which is very exciting and a little anxiousifying. I usually can't fly without being laid out flat for a day or three, but I've got my pain pills and we're going to try! Since we pretty much can't go on vacations because of Ana-suckage, we decided to go all out on just this one.
Although I hope someday to go to Harry Potter World or whatever they're calling it. That sounds cool. :)
Open thread, you say? Ooh, now I can post a question and not be afraid I'm derailing anything!
The plot of, um, project I'm working on right now (sorry if you think "project" sounds pretentious, but I can't really call it "story" yet) takes place in a fictional European country. I'm writing it in Russian, but it looks like there'll be an English version, too. That's where things become complicated for me.
You see, in Russian, foreign names of similar origin that are pronounced differently *are also spelt differently*. So if we have two women named Rachel, one is British and the other is French, text won't have two Rachels, but "Рэйчел" (Ray-chel) and "Рашель" (Rah-shel'), so there'll be no confusion. In Fictional European Country, thanks to a massive fad, a lot of people born twenty or so years ago were given English names. "English names", of course, include names borrowed from other languages. So I deal with the situation where some people might have different versions of the same Greek/Latin/Jewish names *that will have to be written similarly in an English version*. And when a character corrects wrong pronunciations of his/her name, it will look like this: "Erm, actually, I'm Damon, not Damon". Confusing, right?
So, any advice?
There were water benders in the Earth Kingdom, Ana! They lived in a swamp and used the water in the plants to plant-bend.
I hear Hawaii is nice and jet lag is not, but never having left my native time zone I wouldn't know. Hope you have fun!
It'd be nice to have an opportunity to use my new swimming abilities*. The pool at the hotel in Massachusetts had a broken heater, so we found it too cold. Bought a noodle and everything.
*I swear floating was hard before, but when I tried again during the classes it was easy. Maybe it's the puberty? I think estrogenised puberty raises the fat ratio; that might help.
Oh, Ana, I am so going to fill your inbox with Pulchritude commentary when you are gone! But don't feel obligated to respond to any of it until you get back because, you know, vacation. My folks went to Hawaii for the first time a couple years ago and they had a blast! They said it was stunningly beautiful and very relaxing, so I hope you have a similar experience!
@RedCrow, could you choose names for the translation that have different translations across languages? Like, "I'm Bella, not Belle"?
@Sarah, that information is FREAKING AWESOME, thank you. :D
@Brin, I've noticed that too -- I had a hard time learning to float as a child, but it's easy now. I'm guessing its fat buoyancy, maybe?
@Nina, yes! Send beta reading email! I love reading email, and I'll answer everything when I get back! :D
@redcrow for a name like Rachel, try slightly different spelling? Rachelle is how I would spell the French pronunciation to ensure that English speakers have an idea that it's different, though it's basically the same name. (Michel and Michael are another pair... or Mary and Marie and Mari) If it's mostly a matter of which syllable the emphasis is placed, as with Rachel or Damon, you could try italicising the appropriate syllable? but that would only work in the part where the character corrects the pronunciation.
Do you mind advertising in open threads? Because I've been inspired to do a deconstruction of my own over in my blog, but unfortunately don't have any readers yet, so if anyone's got some free time I'd love comments on how I'm doing.
I'm okay with advertising in ANY threads. :D
Have a great time in Hawaii. Uh, if you see a sign warning about undertow, take that very seriously and avoid beaches like that.
I hope your vacation is long enough that you will have time to get through the first few painful days and onto the other side. But whatever it ends up being, snuggle with your husband, read books, hang around. I had a migraine for most of my love's visit to Hungary, and her ankles were swollen and painful from the flight for the first few days, but even though we were both a bit grumpy and in pain, we managed. We kept it pretty casual and tried to keep an easy pace.
@Redcrow, it is a trend in America these days to spell names more creatively. So it's possible one Rachel might be Ræchel and another might be Rachelle, or you could spell one phonetically as Rashell. Since you didn't provide the Cyrillic for Damon I only know the Дэймон pronunciation but if there was a character pronounced like Дмон you could have "Daymon" and "D'Mon"
Ooooor, maybe you could have a character named "Charles" and another named Čarlz, and the character keep thinking he should be called "Carl" (Карл) maybe not knowing that č is pronounced like ч.
I think you should have character named György ~ джьрджь and another character named George - Джордж and another named Георгий.
Actually, I have a question. In Russian if you are reading a book translated from English about a man name George, will it be written as Джордж or Георгий? In Hungarian it varies. Sometimes, especially in books for children, we will change Mary to Mária and John to János and George to György. But more recently, especially in books for adults and teenagers, the name will be kept as in the original. -- A lot of names in Harry Potter were changed, and just phonetically. Snape became Piton (=python) for example (I think translator thought Snape meant Snake), and Bilbo Baggins became Zsákos Bilbó (Bilbo Baggy). I see from Wikipedia that in Russian, Baggins is written phonetically, not translated: Бильбо Бэггинс, but Snape is written as Северус Снегг not Снейп. So I'm curious. Doesn't Снег mean snow in Russian? How does that affect your reading of the character?
"and just phonetically."
I meant to write "and not just phonetically"
Great! Well, my blog is at yamikuronue.wordpress.org. I should have another deconstruction post up today, it's half written. There's also writing samples and so forth. I've only recently started actually blogging (used to write novels in blogs for the feedback), so it's quite small ATM.
Bayley, your link doesn't work. When I click it, it takes me to the wordpress homepage.
Whoops, brain went on autopilot. Fixed.
Thank you, Pthalo, we definitely plan to take it slow! That will be hard for me, though, I'm very opposed to down-time for myself. *sheepish*
Have great time, Ana! You deserve a wonderful vacation, as hard as you've been working lately.
@Bayley G: Good lord, you're doing This Present Darkness?! You're a braver reader than I am, then. I tried reading it once, out of curiosity, and couldn't get past the first chapter. Then again, I'd have to say the same about Twilight, which doesn't stop me from enjoying Ana's dissection of it, so I hope you're having fun with Peretti's nonsense.
*bookmarks blog to catch up with*
Also, congratulations on the new job.
Thanks :D
Yeah, I tried to read it once a few years back, but gave up a few chapters in. I figure doing a deconstruction will let me vent enough to (hopefully) finish the bloody thing XD
@Amaryllis, thank you!
@Bayley, Peretti, huh? Would you believe I liked that book as a kid? I shudder to think, now. I've been thinking to do his Cooper Kids books when Claymore finishes. But they would basically be me railing against the Christianity of my childhood, which might be unfair. It's one thing for Fred to criticize fundamentalism, another thing for me to do so, I think. Still, I'm sorely tempted. :/
Can't wait to read you. :)
:D Sometimes I feel incredibly lucky that my parents didn't get very serious about religion until after I'd already rejected Christianity as not being suitably for my personality. If I'd had fundamentalism drilled into my head on top of the borderline-abusive stuff my mom worked in there... I'm not sure who I'd be today. My mom, grandmother, and aunts keep sending me things like this; I figure, hey, why not have some fun with it before quietly donating it to charity.
I had the opposite effect: Mom and Dad have mellowed considerably now that I'm an adult. Odd, that.
If you haven't read the Rapture Ready! section on Peretti, I'd love to quote it to you. :D
I haven't been masochistic enough to sign up for RR just yet; FormerConservative's frequent forays into their forum are fundy-tastic enough :)
*happy squee* I love quotes.
This is actually from the book, which is quite good. I'm not on the forums, myself.
And this is what had me worried. Terri, who seemed like a perfectly ordinary suburban mom, might well, if she could see my cancelled checks to the ACLU and NARAL, believe that I am a member of an international conspiracy of Satan worshippers—because Frank Peretti says it so vividly.
“What do you think of the villains in his books?” I braced myself for a blast of vitriol.
“I think he has a little bit of mercy towards them. He doesn’t really paint them as totally evil.”
What?
“It’s the perspective he brings,” Terri explained. “They just, you know, are pawns. We wrestle not against flesh and blood but against principalities and powers.”
I had been reading Peretti through secular eyes. To a Christian, the dastardly liberals are not so much villains as victims. It’s not their fault they’re possessed by demons. But if I felt a slight diminishing of hostility, I also saw any hope of mutual accommodation go up in a blast of sulfurous smoke. It may shock Peretti, but these days, much of what liberals really anguish about behind closed doors is how to find common ground with people of faith. And now I realized that for at least some people, common ground will never be possible because they don’t object to specific ideas that can be reframed or adjusted. They object to Satan, whose bidding we are doing. They may not hate us—they may believe they love us—but they hate him, and they won’t negotiate with him either. We want to persuade them, reason with them, listen to them, and accommodate them. They want to save us. It’s not even the same playing field.
This definitely described my view as a kid. Peretti is NICE. It's not the peoples' fault they're liberal / pro-abortion / anti-spanking / etc. It's the DEMONS that control them.
Sometimes, I try to remember how I thought as a kid and it's like... well, I imagine it's a tiny little bit like coming off of brainwashing. I KNOW I thought certain things, but I cannot UNDERSTAND how I did. It'd be like a clear and vivid memory of believing that 2 + 2 equaled 5.
>>>Since you didn't provide the Cyrillic for Damon
Yes, one "Damon" would be Дэймон, the other - Дамон with the stress on a second syllable.
>>>In Russian if you are reading a book translated from English about a man name George, will it be written as Джордж or Георгий?
Джордж. Unless it's a very old translation, then he might very well be Георг.
That ridiculous HP translation is a source of many headdesking, facepalming and teeth-gnashing in fandom. Yes, снег is snow. I think they were going for "Северус" - "Север" (north) association. North, snow... Why poor Neville became Долгопупс is anyone's guess.
Bilbo's last name is untranslated in The Hobbit, but in LOTR translation I grew up with (and in subsequent translations too) all last names and most first names that could be translated - were. So Bilbo and Frodo were Torbins (and lived in Torba-na-Kruche - no idea where they got "krucha" from). In another translation Baggins became Sumniks. It didn't irritate me then, but probably would now.
How does it affect my reading of characters? I don't know if it does, though I know that it took me some time to stop seeing hobbits as some cross between humans and rabbits, because in the classic LOTR translation all the Tooks and Brandybucks became Krols and Brandyzayks. Yes, Rabb(it)s and Brandyhares.
Good lord, This Present Darkness? I've read that, and I remember only that it was terrible!
Has anybody read the Forbidden Doors series by... whatsis... Bill Meyers? Someone blessed our library with a set, they're... something else. 9_6 Heck, if I had the brains to do a deconstruction, or maybe it'd be more of a debunking because his research is so much fail... nah, got better things to do with my time.
I'm not sure if I understand you correctly, because "translation that have different translations" confuses me a bit. I suspect one of "translations" is supposed to be either "pronounciation" or "transliteration"?
My problem is specifically with names that sound differently but have identical spelling in, say, English and French or English and German. I'm not sure "Bella" and "Belle" work as examples.
That's what I'm trying, but sometimes it's hard. Some names would look ridiculous with changed spelling. I'm not a stranger to ridiculous transliterations, I once had a sue named Ivlyn ("Evelyn" seemed too soft and feminine for her) but I don't know how many Ivlyns can I inflict on poor potential readers without being virtually stoned.
My problem is specifically with names that sound differently but have identical spelling in, say, English and French or English and German. I'm not sure "Bella" and "Belle" work as examples.
Hmm. I've read that translations of novels usually have to change the story somewhat to fit the language. This may be one of those cases -- I can't think of many names that are spelled the same but pronounced differently across multiple languages. :(
Particularly English and French. Maybe "Guy" (English: Guy, Die; French: Guy, We), but that's the only one I can think of. And it'll be tricky to bring that across in the reading if the character just says "It's not GUY, it's GUY." You'll have to rephrase, like, "You're pronouncing it wrong" I think. :(
Well, there's Gabriel, for example. Also Regina. And Aurora. (Michaela, on the other wing, is not a problem - she was supposed to be named Mikaela, that's how she's gonna be called in narration.)
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