[rollei_list] Re: VSL3 E came back repaired from Brunswick - translation/interpretation
- From: John Wild <JWild@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "rollei_list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <rollei_list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 4 Apr 2012 10:16:52 +0100
From my school boy French, I seem to remember that ‘tirer’ was to pull and also
to fire a rifle – pull the trigger.
So, via a diverse route around the translation/interpretation ‘retirer’ would
be to ‘re-pull’ or as Chris says, retrieve.
I do sometimes enjoy sleuthing and look for the possible original meaning of a
word, having been translated from another language many generations ago, and
where the meaning has branched out over time.
I find that, for example, when reading German text, a number of words have many
similarities with English words but can mean something inherently different but
by broadening the sense of the word, they can mean basically the same.
I find that for example German words can have such a wide range of meanings and
that when combined with others to make compound words, the chance, as a
non-German, of knowing how this conglomeration should be interpreted, has the
same odds as winning the lottery.
That is not to say that the English language is any easier for the non English
to comprehend, especially when many words sound the same but are spelt
differently... pair, pear, pare – two, a fruit, cut. It’s all in the context.
I have always wondered how, in war stories, that spies could be trained to
speak a foreign language in a week or so, sufficiently to understand any
dialects and colloquialisms that they may incur. I find that I can understand a
broad Scottish or northern English accent, although born and bred the south,
whereas many of my friends cannot. I am not a linguist and not even fluent in
my native language - when it comes to perusing the Shorter Oxford Dictionary -
but I suppose I do look for the more diverse meanings of a word together with
the more associated ones. Many words have greatly changed their meaning since I
went to school and I find that I have to be careful when using some of them
when encountering the wider population... ;-)
John
On 04/04/2012 04:50, "Chris Burck" <chris.burck@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Carlos, i think the closest/most appropriate English word would have been
"retrieved".
On Tue, Apr 3, 2012 at 1:07 PM, CarlosMFreaza <cmfreaza@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
CarlosMFreaza <cmfreaza@xxxxxxxxx> escribió:
> I retired my Rollei Voigtländer VSL3 -E from the customs in the post
> office....."
I meant "I looked for my...."
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