Forestalling language criticism/Schutzverhalten beim Übersetzen
am 16.08.2008 von http://transblawg.eu
Mark Liberman at Language Log writes on the topic of popularly deprecated language usage:
Finally, I recognize the necessity to take account even of the kind of grammatical and lexicographical advice thats entirely incompetent and mistaken: which-hunting, prepositional paranoia, they phobia, and so on. I know someone who believes deeply that wearing white pants after Labor Day is an offense against decency, and who feels entitled to explain this to me at length whenever the topic comes up. I doubt the validity of this fashion advice, and dont care much one way or the other in any case; but I generally (well, sometimes) go along with this prejudice in order to avoid pointless arguments. Similarly, I sometimes regulate my use of which so as to avoid arguments with copy editors. Its cowardly, I know, but there you are.
Thats something I do in translation. For instance, I sometimes restrict which to defining relative clauses and use that in non-defining ones if I think an American is going to read the translation, even though not all Americans believe that that is a rule.
I dont usually use they as a non-gender-specific singular, although I think it can be elegant (albeit easier to use in an original text than in a translation).
Example from above link:
Subject to this Act, every person who is qualified as an elector is entitled to have their name included in the list of electors.
I think twice before I split an infinitive.
From alt.usage.english:
Certain kinds …
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Books on legal English footnote/Bücher über Rechtsenglisch Nachtrag
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Serial Translation
Jurabilis / Pretty neat project! Contact torsten.jochem@gmail.com directly for more information. ------------------------ Vyjayanthi Rao (Professor at the Anthropology department as well as GPIA) is supporting a project of a very well known Chinese artist, wh…
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