Re: Semi-OT: little-known/well-known terms in monolingual dictionaries


"Nick Worley" <nw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:5pghspFr7jk4U1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
"André Keshave" <marc kesh @ A I M . c o m> wrote in message
news:4732d8fb$1_7@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Nick Worley"

(...)
Plus the abundance of the synonyms then made me think that unless I know
whether "Dirne" can ever sound comical in certain contexts, or how the
word
comes across to a native speaker in any given context, I have no proper
way
of knowing how best to translate this word.

I was thinking I needed some kind of way of rating the outdatedness (or
not)
of a word, or the comical effect (or not) of a word, or the insulting
nature
(or not) of a word -- taking the context into account of course. Without
this information how can anyone know how best to translate any term?
(...)

I believe that's one of the main difficulties in translating. The problem
is that ideally a translator should have a native feeling for the source
language. However translators are usually native speakers of the target
language, because a better mastery of the target language is required
than of the source language - so it's a kind of compromise. Having said
that, wouldn't googling help in providing indications of usage ?

AK:
That rings a bell, I read something about that not long back. It was
either a URL that someone had posted here, or I'd stumbled across the
article when googling, but the writer of the article was claiming that
translation is an almost impossible task for the reasons you mentioned.
Having said that, enough people make a living out of it, so it can't be
completely impossible.

Googling would help to some extent, but when I create my own user entries
in Duden Oxford (because that's my favourite interface) I like to cram in
as much detail as possible. I'll copy and paste all the entries for a
given term from all the e-dicts and online dicts I regularly use. That
means Duden Oxford, Collins, Langenscheidt Muret-Sanders, Leo, IATE,
Beolingus, Laixicon, plus this one I stumbled across the other day:
http://www.iee.et.tu-dresden.de/cgi-bin/cgiwrap/wernerr/search.sh --
720,000 entries -- that's pretty impressive.

I'll mark the entries in my user entry so I know which dictionary/version
they came from.

I'll make sure I also copy & paste all that other info used to mark words
such as: slang, obscure, dated, obsolete, vulgar, officialese, nth German,
sth German, Swiss German, humorous, ironic, etc, etc. I'm sure Google
would help me fill some or all the gaps in any given entry when it comes
to these markers, but I just like having loads of info right there in
front of me. Or in other words, predict as far as possible all the
research that would need to go into any one entry, so I don't have to do
it at a later date. Or else the amount of research required is greatly
minimized, compared to creating a user entry from scratch.

I tell you what would be a good feature, being able to add images, video
and sound to entries. That'd be useful for certain types of entry.

EH:
"The OED also gives quotations instantiating the use of words from their
origin and labels some as archaicisms"
Could you provide a couple of examples?

EH:

NW:

I'm waiting for some construction and the OED is in boxes. Basically, it
gives a chronology of
citations of the use of a word in context in various works over time.

The OED itself is a multi-volume, expensive monster. If you want to save
money and space, look for the
microphotographically condensed set in two volumes. You will still need to
purchase supplementary
volumes to keep current. And you will also require something to view the
text unless you have efficiently
squinty eyes. The original two volumes came with a magnifying glass and slip
case but you will be very
luck to find the glass with a used set though the slipcase can usually be
had.
Try www.bookfinder.com, www.half.com or www.ebay.com.

And you are welcome.

Regards,

Edward Hennessey



.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Semi-OT: little-known/well-known terms in monolingual dictionaries
    ... comes across to a native speaker in any given context, ... of knowing how best to translate this word. ... Googling would help to some extent, but when I create my own user entries in Duden Oxford I like to cram in as much detail as possible. ... I'll mark the entries in my user entry so I know which dictionary/version they came from. ...
    (sci.lang.translation)
  • Re: Right Click on folders dropdown menu
    ... > Thank you very much for this information about editing the registry. ... Here's an easy way to remove the entries you don't want. ... Find the entry you don't want for the context ... I believe this context menu integration has to be ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.general)
  • Re: koujoushin : Ambition, aspiration or self-improvement?
    ... >> so just translate it as the context requires, using a phrase if necessary. ... >entry" you need to narrow it down a bit more. ...
    (sci.lang.japan)
  • Virtual Address to physical address
    ... I have a requirement that needs me to translate a users buffer to a ... and lenth for each uio_lov entry. ... start another DMA if there are more entries in the DMA list. ...
    (comp.unix.solaris)
  • Re: "right click" and desktop
    ... when I removed the video card from the AGP slot and used the ... You have a problem with a context menu entry. ... error and ask me the same thing (if I want to send an error repport). ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.newusers)