SPOONERISMS

That was a few days ago.

Headline in today's paper-

"MUMPS CRISIS WARNING AS CASES RISE 15-FOLD."

The medics are "manning the pumps" in order to pan the mumps.

Gee-I'm a prophet.Keep your cringers fossed boys.

well.......yeah.........

Bad Diggy...

Francis:-

I have a question Are you going to stay on?

On spoonerisms thread? Assuredly...

Francis;-

It struck me last night that it is possible that the English translation of Salammbo,and other things,might actually be better than the original.I don't know.Maybe nobody does.They might not even be comparable.

All I know is that it is wonderful in English and I hope it is as good in every other language it is put into.

If it is better in English,and we can discuss "better" some other time,it might be an explanation of why English is becoming the international language and that those who resist for some narrow reason are fools and cutting off their nose to spite their face.
What I mean is that English might have the force of evolution behind it like the blue of a bluebell must have had.

One way I thought might be evidence for this is to compare a phrase in the two versions.On page nine of my copy Salammbo is being described and one sentence reads "Between her ankles she wore a golden chainlet to regulate her steps....".That phrase "regulate her steps" is ambiguous in English.
Is it in the French?Would you be kind enough to check it for me.See what the French is and whether it has this ambiguity.

"Elle portait entre les chevilles une chaînette d'or pour régler sa marche, et son grand manteau de pourpre sombre, taillé dans une étoffe inconnue, traînait derrière elle, faisant à chacun de ses pas comme une large vague qui la suivait."

"Between her ankles she wore a golden chainlet to regulate her steps..."

Spendius - The phrase doesn't seem odd to me but it's perhaps I know it in many versions..

This chainlet made her pace to be even : "her steps had the same lenght"..

Francis:-

First thanks.

There are more steps a young lady can take than those of her walk.Her sexual steps in life I mean.
Her development.Does that come into the French as it does in English.That's what I'm getting at.There is a humour in the other reading of the ambiguity in English which may be the translator's and not in the original.Although "pour regler sa marche" looks like it might.Would a Frenchman make that sexual reading.
You will remember no doubt that the chain is broken in the tent.

Spendius - At this point, I dont feel the double meaning you refer to. But if I remember well, it comes later in the story. Having not made an exegesis of the work, let me a few hours to appreciate your point...

Dion's Len.

A bare rird on this earth, like mothing so nuch as a slack bwan.

He's a mimple san who uses mimple saterials.

Frello Hancis, ca va ?

Mathos - je bai viens! sois auti?

I confirm my first feeling, no connection other than descriptive at this point. But it becomes more evident in the chapter 3 and followings.

I read it in English and still didn't found the connection. But I wouldn't trust my poor English skills to make such an assertion.

Would Flaubert wrote "démarche" instead of "marche", it would have added a sexual connotation to the description.

Francis:-

What's the difference?

On 3rd page of Ch 5,in my copy,it says-"beards and heads of hair".I'm sure that Google version had "curls" instead of heads.

It goes-"...rush baskets were heaped up with the first fruits of adolesence in the shape of beards and heads of hair.."

"heads" doesn't make sense to me but "curls" does.
I have noticed this sort of thing before in comparisons between early and late printings of King Solomon's Mines.
I'm pushed for time.Hope to find you Monday.

Regards.

Spendius - I'll post in your "ignoramuses" thread to leave aspone the looners..

KO.

Francis - Je buis tres sien. Merci !

When cou yome to the end of a derfect pay.

ere decum ere dego fortylorries inarow
Demsnotlorries demistruckscarryingeese anhensanducks !

A change as is rood as a gest.

I'll be late backer!

Fink stinger.

before i even knew what an oonerspism was, i had a friend who said "fink ployd"...

Another ball in the wrick..