From iad@math.bas.bg Thu Feb 10 00:37:51 2000 X-Digest-Num: 359 Message-ID: <44114.359.1966.959273826@eGroups.com> Date: Thu, 10 Feb 2000 10:37:51 +0200 From: Ivan A Derzhanski Subject: Re: And the Eskimos have 100 words for 'Snow Cone' Bob LeChevalier (lojbab) wrote: > My English Russian disctionary gives yeda as a translation for > "meal", "repast", and "food". It may not exclusively mean "meal", Obviously not. Why, you just noted the meaning `food'. An even better gloss is `eating'. It being the case that there is no actual `meal' word in Russian, you have to paraphrase. So `prepare a meal' becomes `prepare a breakfast/lunch/dinner' if the time of day at which the meal is to be had is known, or `prepare food' (Ru _eda_) otherwise. And `before/during/after meals' becomes `before/during/after eating' (likewise Ru _eda_). So there are some occasions in which _eda_ appears to mean `meal', but that is never the closest English word. And then there are those cases in which _eda_ is completely out. It can't be pluralised, for one thing, so `have 3 meals a day' must become `eat 3 times a day' before it can be translated. And `3-course meal' has to become `3-course lunch/dinner', and if you don't know which one it is, you have to guess (you may be inaccurate, but you may never be approximate). > but certainly sounds like it would belong in a synonym list > along with an explicit list of meals. Something like _{sanmi}: eda, trapeza; zavtrak, obed, uzhin_ would probably get the point across. --Ivan