Tag Archives: translation

Found in Translation…

Posted on by
2

The lady translating my book from English to Korean emailed a few days ago with several questions. We had a good time sorting out idioms and idiosyncrasies, but I knew I was in trouble when HyoungEun emailed a second time to ask: In chapter 23, does “Fuquay Avenue” have something to do with porn? (Am I missing something here?) Or is it just the timing that made Mr Beck laugh so hard?

After cleaning up the coffee I’d spit across the keyboard, I reflected on why, in fact, Jack and I had laughed so hard. For those of you who haven’t read Little Bookstore, you’ve gotta get through Chapter 23 to know what we’re talking about. We couldn’t get outta that town fast enough. (Although I am reliably informed by a sweet reader who recognized her home turf that it has some really nice shopping AND a lovely Middle Eastern restaurant just a few streets over.)

Then, in an attempt to answer HyoungEun’s question, I sent her this response (I have replaced the word in question with ‘eff’ because, quite frankly, about every three days someone finds my blog by searching for “Fulton Ave Books” and “redheaded Wendy porn.” (I have NO idea!) I get enough porn-related search phrases as it is. It would be nice if Google and Yahoo would stop sending inquiring dirty minds my way. There are some lonely, unhappy weirdos out there, and I only wrote about Evansville once!)

HYOUNGEUN: Oh I’m laughing so hard my computer is shaking. Fuquay is a little too close to a word in English that is considered very vulgar. Eff means having sex but it connotes a rather joyless and loveless, merely physical, experience. Bored people and professional sex workers eff. The rest of us make love, or have sex. So Fuquay was a very French sounding way of saying eff and it was in the middle of those lovely mansions and spelled out on a wrought iron street sign, like it was trying to be really classy and wonderful, and it was just this street sex nasty term. (And totally unexpected, just after all those porn shops.) That’s why it made Jack laugh so hard.

HyoungEun sent back a swift response: Oh, of course I know what eff means! (Seen a lot of NC-17 movies. Ahem.) … I should’ve asked this from the start, cause I’ve been searching Google (and Yahoo and….etc.) the whole time and Google God failed me again! They say ‘If you are desperate, you go to Google result page2.’ I went much farther than ‘page2.’

That poor kid. What will the cookies on her computer be doing tomorrow? Will she have to explain anything to her boss? Call me if you need back-up, HyoungEun! I know what those search engines do. It ain’t pretty.

Bless their Hearts

Posted on by
4

Another guest blog from Jack while Wendy is ‘hors de combat’

 

I’ve been thinking about the books I read (yes, I know – I live in a bookstore) and why folk read the kind of books they do. For instance I tend not to read all that much fiction, preferring history and biography. There are exceptions, of course – Ian Rankin for one. He’s famous for a series based around his Inspector Rebus character. The reason I enjoy him is probably pretty obvious to anyone who knows me and the books; both Rankin and Rebus are from West Fife in Scotland, both moved to Edinburgh and the books capture the seedier side of Edinburgh (and West Fife) perfectly. All places I know very well. Throw in references to old friends of mine and he can hardly go wrong (the stories are great too). I knew that Rankin was popular and successful, but I hadn’t realized that he had US editions of his book until I moved over here while half way through the Rebus series.

 

Here’s where it gets weird!

 

You would think that an American edition of a British book would just have the price in dollars instead of pounds – end of story (Ha!). But you’d be wrong because – – – this isn’t a British book; oh no, this is a SCOTTISH book. It’s in a foreign language, so the US publishers paid someone to translate it into proper English! These American editions are completely hilarious. They translate things like ‘city bypass’ to ‘urban freeway’, yet blithely ignore much more problematical things like ‘wee bampot’. Of course no-one in Scotland would say ‘urban freeway’ and most Americans could make a reasonable guess at ‘city bypass’, so I’m left puzzled though amused.

 

All this must have a point, I here you ask –

 

The Little Bookstore of Big Stone Gap is being translated into a slew of foreign languages, none of which either of us speak (at the last count, Chinese, Korean, Polish and Portuguese). A friend suggested I should translate it into Scots and that suddenly made the connection to the sad saga of Inspector Rebus. How will we know if ‘urban freeway’ has become ‘city bypass’ or ‘insignificant idiot’ has become ‘wee bampot’?

 

Publishers – bless their hearts!