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Tag Archives: translation

Dr Johnfon’s Ducktionary – or; fome juvenilia, revifed upon mature confideration

In this place (as oppofed to that) Is repofited horizontally a Hearty, wholefome and falubrious Young male exemplum of fub-genus Water fowl (be it wild or be it tame), The accufative fingular of which Samuel Johnson – Artium Magifter, Legum Doctor (honoris caufa) – Did trample and crufh most Contemptibly beneath his foot; Suppofing it […]

WHAT’S YOUR AFRIKAANS-TRANSLATOR NAME?

Your Afrikaans-Translator Name is L’Angoustine Bezuidenhout .

Bertrand Russell wishes you a happy marriage

for Paul and Beth (from volumes found at their engagement party) . ‘Whitehead and Russell’s Principia Mathematica is famous for taking a thousand pages to prove that 1+1=2.’ — Mark Dominus ‘To say shortly why one values love is not easy.’ — Bertrand Russell . I know what life and love may be. . . […]

Easy Frisy

‘Some bread, some butter, and green cheese’ is as good in England as it is in Frisia. — * from a synthetic translation exercise by John McWhorter

Questions – LXIII (after Neruda)

How is the translation of their languages agreed upon with the birds? How do I explain to the tortoise that I am even slower than he is? How should I quiz the flea about his championship statistics? Or address the carnations, in my appreciation of their fragrance?

Translator’s Note (after Khemiri, after Heti, after Valtat, after Coetzee, after Nooteboom, after Martin, after Kierkegaard)

What I would like to say by way of introduction to my essays on the art of writing, by A.B.C.D.E.F. Godthaab* (* Bear with me, please, while I endeavour to explain what is going on here.) . Twelve years ago, I wrote, with considerable emotional anguish, a long novel about a war against the languages. […]

On the 27th draft translation of Basho’s ‘Sound of Water’

Master, due respect: No-one cares about the pond. Or the frog. ……………(Plop.) ……………………(Splash!)

Was ist Lydia? (homage)

I  If only I’d been born Lydia Davis I’d have written a lot less.   II  The Lydia Davis School of Banter – Call me, bitch. – Don’t call me bitch.   III  Flaubert, revised ‘“A good sentence in prose,” says Flaubert, “should be like a good line in poetry, unchangeable, as rhythmic, as sonorous.”’ […]