Re: “ko pinxe mi” picture (was: Re: [lojban] Alice essay)

[Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com>]

On Sat, Dec 7, 2013 at 9:04 AM, Wuzzy <almikes@aol.com> wrote:

On Fri, 6 Dec 2013 20:28:28 -0200
Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com> wrote:
> BTW, this is not the only (or the first) use of all-caps in the text.
> The labels that Alice reads, KO MI PINXE and KO MI CITKA are also
> written in all-caps. In this case not just because the original does
> that, but also because there is a DRINK ME in one of the pictures and
> I thought that made for a better match between text and picture.
So the first argument says it’s in all-caps in English, it has to in
Lojban, too. This is a strange argument.

That's not quite the argument though. There's no "has to"  in translation, there are always compromises. The original has:

"[...] a paper label, with the words 'DRINK ME' beautifully printed on it in large letters."

You could say that the fact that the original uses all-caps, even though it's against the usual practice in English, is irrelevant and should not be reflected in the translation, or you could say that the author had his reasons for using all-caps and thus reflect that in the translation. The text even mentions "large letters". 

 

I defeat the second argument by drawing a new picture for you :-). I
have changed the picture a little bit so the label does not read “DRINK
ME” but “ko pinxe mi”. I am not a very good artist, but I tried my best.
You find the PNG image in the attachment.

If you’re interested, I can also upload the XCF file for The GIMP and
also an image for “ko mi pinxe”.

I'm not sure what the legal ramifications for the use of altered illustrations are, probably not a problem in this case. The edition that I have in Spanish uses the original unaltered illustration with the words in English. I don't think it's common practice to alter illustrations like that in published translations. 

 

I uploaded “ko pinxe me” because it
slightly looks better in my opinion.

I like moving pronouns in front of the selbri whenever possible.

Lastly, the rules for which you write random words in all-caps seem to
be more or less random and inconsistent. From another e-mail I read that
“KREFU” was justified because it was a “metalinguistic comment”.

I don't think I was following any rules in choosing all-caps for those words. It was just the choice I made at the time. It's not necessarily the best compromise, but there you are. Personally I think it's a very trivial issue.

mu'o mi'e xorxes

 

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