??hello dear all,
just to add to our discussions about translation (and, yes, the various translations of Virginia Woolf I engaged with are now referred to on the Univ. of Edinburgh press site, thanks for pointing this out, Pat!) were fascinating to me, and so long ago now, writing my chapters for Surprised in Translation (Univ of Chicago) was fun indeed but I couldn’t leave the topic until I shared this word that gave away a murderer in some film we just saw:
he (James Mason, who else?) is queried by a super-smart and subtle detective who has said, oh, sometimes it is just a word or phrase that gives away the guilty person, and then asks James to describe what happened, so he replies and then “the car drove away afterwards’ instead of saying “after”… and behold, he had admitted something happened!
THAT is a perfect instance of how details matter !
so next semester any of us who want to be with us will take up various omissions and obsessions, a topic that engages something not only about language, but also… pretty maximal or minimal as it happens! Let me know, anyone who will be with us, as it were…
best to each, Mary Ann
Mary Ann Caws
