Hi, Ardith Hinton! -> Alexander Koryagin
I read your message from 30.09.2021 23:36
I am not sure I know the correct word. In Russia we use the
word "a male goat" as an idiomatic sleng word meaning absence of
respect, or when you have a resentment to somebody.
When I looked up "twit" in THE FREE DICTIONARY I found quite a lot
of stuff you might find useful, including definitions & synonyms.
In summary... a twit is a foolish, stupid, annoying, and/or
insignificant person. I'm guessing that is more or less what you
were thinking of here.
Did you use "twit" as "beep" when somebody on TV swears? Is "goat" so
indecent?
Does the following story sound funny in English and can it be
improved?
Yes, on both counts. Long explanation to follow... [grin].
Three men from the USA delegation came to Russia and went to a big
plant to sign a contract. The director sees them into his cabinet
|private office
Yea, there are many words in Russian when we are sure that they mean the
same in English. :)
Why not use the same verb tense throughout the story? I know we
have discussed this issue already... but a tense change in mid-
paragraph, unless the logic is obvious to me, still sounds wrong
according to what I was taught.: - Q
I agree. Although I saw many examples of it in the modern literature. It
looks like as if we put the reader into the situation we are telling
him. So, we have a kind of innuendo "once upon a time ..." And next we
are as if present at the place. Probably this can make the story more
vivid. Of maybe it can be considered as a free informal style?
and says to his secretary girl, "Well dear --
|female secretary
Although such informal "dear" can be applied to the girl only.
one glass of cognac for me and three tea for these goats."
IOW he's such an important person he can drink alcoholic beverages
on the job without offering any to persons he regards as inferior
to himself... or at least he thinks he is. My sympathies lie with
the translator already. :-))
He knows that American businessmen don't drink at work. How foolish of
them! ;-)
One man from the delegation says, "two tea, please, I am a
translator."
Ah... so this story is not a commentary on the status of women. But
to be fair, I'm writing as if the translator could be male or
female.
On a sociological level, the translator may be thinking s/he works
as hard as (and probably gets paid less than) other folk attending
this meeting... yet, like the secretary, s/he is a highly skilled individual without whose help these guys would be unable to do
their jobs. And if s/he's expected to talk as much as all of them
do the need to wet his/her whistle may be greater.
I think the story mostly tells us that Russians like to drink alcohol everywhere. So we find out actually that the translator is a Russian and
he probably doesn't mind to have a shot too.
In English, the translator's response could be a play on words too:
* I often hear young servers nowadays saying e.g. "two coffees" or
"two teas" when they mean "two cups of [whatever]". Perhaps the
translator has noticed this phenomenon as well. Either way, two
or more generally --> pluralization of a noun or pronoun.
I noted it. :)
* When people have more than one variety of tea in stock, they may
ask which a guest prefers. My mother-in-law used to offer China
tea or India tea. I reckon that in such situations a translator
might say "One cup of each, please... I'm bilingual."
I see.
* Depending on the intonation, and on whether s/he's addressing the
secretary or the director, the translator's reply could be heard
as "to tease"... an allusion to the director's bad manners. And
s/he sets a good example by adding "please", which he didn't do.
The boss certainly was not an example of a good person.
I see the translator's response as amusing when I think of
situations in which e.g. a male teacher nearing retirement
disagreed with our principal at staff meetings from time to time. I
also notice that the actual words could be interpreted in more than
one way, as is very common with jokes in English.
Yes. It is not necessary that the translator wanted to drink alcohol.
The understanding depends on our feeling of black humour. :)
Bye, Ardith!
Alexander Koryagin
english_tutor 2021
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