Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2013 January 9

= January 9 =

Przy Pikrynie i Trotylu
The full title of this book by Roza Bauminger, published in Krakow in 1946 by the CKZP (Central Committee of the Jews in Poland), is: The words Pikryna and Trotyl are evidently the names of explosive materials used in the HASAG-run munitions factory at Skarżysko-Kamienna staffed mainly by Jewish forced labor. How to translate the book's full title into English? -- Deborahjay (talk) 08:41, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Przy Pikrynie i Trotylu: Oboz Pracy Przymusowej w Skarżysku-Kamienne


 * Well, "trotylu" is apparently a Polish nickname for trinitrotoluene (TNT). StuRat (talk) 09:05, 9 January 2013 (UTC)


 * By [=next to] picric acid [or some its derivative?] and TNT: the forced labour camp in Skarżysko-Kamienna.—Emil J. 13:13, 9 January 2013 (UTC)


 * According to Explosives by Rudolf Meyer, Josef Köhler, Axel Homburg, the German picric acid based explosive was called "Perlit". The British version was called "Lyddite" after the town of Lydd where it was first manufactured. But I think it would make more sense to everybody to stick with "picric acid". Alansplodge (talk) 13:18, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

Difference between "Play" and "Drama"!
What is the difference between "play" and "drama"? Is it correct: "Play" means a literary composition and "Drama" means a play when it is staged? (a source I have studied) --Tito Dutta (talk) 13:33, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
 * No I don't think that's correct. A play is a story written especially for production on a stage (or film, or television). "Drama" is more generic than that. Plays can be referred to as "dramas" but that would imply that there is no comic element within the play. --TammyMoet (talk) 13:40, 9 January 2013 (UTC)


 * See play and drama.--Shantavira|feed me 08:34, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Falling in Love Again - translation problem
The original German title of Falling in Love Again (Can't Help It) is "Ich bin von Kopf bis Fuß auf Liebe eingestellt", which in the article is translated as "I am, from head to toe, ready for love". But there are two problems with that: --KnightMove (talk) 14:44, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
 * 1) The lesser problem is that while "from head to toe" is idomatically correct, Fuß is "foot" in German, not "toe", and so the translation can't claim to be "literal", this way suggesting a wrong vocabulary. Is there an established way to resolve such problems in Wikipedia, like writing "from head to toe [strictly: foot]" or similar?
 * 2) Much worse: "ready for love" seems to be the usual translation, but it sounds that wrong that my hair stands on end. Checking the online dictionaries, I think the only fair translation would be "attuned to love", but it has hardly ever been translated this way. Some other suggestions, like "dedicated to love" or "adjusted to love", neither were widely used, but would still be better than "ready". It seems that a bad translation has been upheld for decades and is "established" now... but is there something one could do without committing original research?
 * Welcome to the world of idiom. -- Jayron  32  14:52, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
 * The problem seems to be that the article on the song says that the English translation you quote is a literal translation of the original when quite clearly it is not. The answer would appear to be to remove the word "literally" from the article.  --Viennese Waltz 14:55, 9 January 2013 (UTC)


 * "Ready for love" appears in "Fit as a Fiddle (And Ready for Love)" and some more suggestive contexts... AnonMoos (talk) 16:54, 9 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Like I'm in the Nude for Love. :)  --   Jack of Oz   [Talk]  18:13, 9 January 2013 (UTC)


 * If you want a more literal translation, try something like "I'm set for love from head to foot". Marco polo (talk) 18:59, 9 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Singin' in the Rain. But KM, I take it your objection was not to the phrase ready for love per se, but rather with it as a translation for auf Liebe eingestellt, is that correct?  As someone with a bare minimum of German, I'm curious why.  What is the aspect of the German phrase that's not correctly translated by the English one? --Trovatore (talk) 19:05, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
 * "Ich bin von Kopf bis Fuß auf Liebe eingestellt" was no idiom in German, but lyrics forced to rhyme with the following "denn das ist meine Welt". --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 19:47, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
 * So it would have been a better translation if it had been more awkward in English, too? --Trovatore (talk) 20:35, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
 * The German phrase could be a be an attempt to translate Singin' in the Rain (I'm ready for love) from 1929. I don't know. --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 21:59, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm not a native speaker, but if the lyricist had just wanted to say "ready for love" in German, I think a more natural translation would have been bereit für die Liebe or bereit zur Liebe. auf x eingestellt means "adjusted", "set up", or "set" like a radio or TV for x.  It doesn't really mean "ready". It's sounds a bit odd in German, I think, and as Pp.paul suggests, maybe a contrived rhyme.  Marco polo (talk) 22:19, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Trovatore: The German verb einstellen (and its past participle eingestellt) has many meanings, most of which have nothing to do with the context (like to hire, appoint, abandon, cease...), but many others could actually contribute to a multiple meaning of the phrase.
 * "Ich bin auf x eingestellt" usually means something like: I expect x to happen, and I am at least mentally prepared for that. So, ready would not be a completely wrong translation, even though with a different emphasis.
 * However here this is not the meaning, at least not the primary. This is shown in the context, which idiomatically has been translated into English rather well: Love is her nature, she was born that way.
 * "Ich bin auf Liebe eingestellt" can also be translated as: "I was adjusted/fine-tuned to love [possibly: by God the creator, or by my education]." Further the expression may also hint to a personal paradigm or worldview: "Ich bin liberal eingestellt." = "I am liberal-minded."
 * To sum it up: To be "ready for love" means a current condition (now you are ready for love, at other times you aren't), whereas "auf Liebe eingestellt" here means the essence of her character (she is that way, has always been, will always be).
 * So, I think the translation is wrong, but what can we do about it?
 * Jayron32: This was not too helpful - my question remains. --KnightMove (talk) 01:09, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
 * OK, here's fuller answer: When translating from one language to another, the hardest thing for a translator to to is to know the proper way to work with an idiom: because an idiom does not have a working meaning that matches the meaning of its individual words, one must be intimately aware of the usage and context of the idiom in order to know how to equivalently translate it to the target language. It is also important to have a good grasp of the target language because sometimes one will want to translate the idiom into an equivalent idiom in the target language (which may not even have a similar literal word-for-word meaning) to preserve the sense and register of the original usage, or to merely translate the idiomatic usage to a plain, non-idiomatic phrase.  It's not a simple matter.  -- Jayron  32  02:50, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
 * More preliminaries: The lyrics (quoted from Ich bin von Kopf bis Fuß auf Liebe eingestellt - Marlene Dietrich, http://www.textquellen.de) is
 * Ich bin von Kopf bis Fuß
 * Auf Liebe eingestellt,
 * Denn das ist meine Welt.
 * Und sonst gar nichts.
 * Note the perfect vowel harmony in lines two and three, far beyond the end rhyme. I do not eben know a name for this type of harmony. I assume that the line is perfect lyrics (not awkward or contrived) and became idiomatic with the song, which became Marlene Dietrich's signature song. It is not everyday language. You do not address your husband or your friend that way (if you are female), and a man can hardly say it. So it is female love lyrics language, and the ideal translation will respect this. --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 14:55, 10 January 2013 (UTC)


 * It's a form of Assonance; traditional Welsh poetry had verse-types with very elaborate rules of assonance... AnonMoos (talk) 16:05, 10 January 2013 (UTC)