Mistranslation Afoot.

Sep 03, 2006 21:00

Below are two scraps of paper I found in on the same day, both in French. I'll do my best to translate.


I found this one in a book I got for free. The telephone numbers suggest this passage was written in Colorado, but I can't vouch for the francophone's grammar. It begins "Anguish is when we efface the future that we know not." There is some confusion here: "she [meaning anguish, I think] manifests especially when we live for a future we suppose negative, in lieu of living in the present." A bit literal, I'm afraid, but anyone who knows better is welcome to give me their version.



This one I'm a little less sure of. I found it at work, and I know of no one there who studies French.
Very literally, it says "It there has no what." Or perhaps it is a "he" instead of it. Poetically, I like to think of it as saying "It's not what is there." Again, feel free to correct me if I am wrong.

poetics, pics, mistranslation

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