How to Write in Plain English

Re:How to Write in Plain English by notahacker on Tuesday August 25, 2020 @09:01AM (#24270854)

A famously playful version of this is the first sentence of Kafka's Metamophorphosis. The reader has the concept of Gregor Samsa waking in his bed from uneasy dreams and then a monstrous vermin in their heads, and the verb they're definitely not expecting to link this subject and object is 'transformed into'...

It's a pain for the translator to pull off the same effect in most other languages.

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Re:How to Write in Plain English by pmoriarty on Tuesday August 25, 2020 @12:23PM (#24272995)

That reminds me of this story:

An American woman visiting Berlin - intent on hearing Bismarck speak - obtained two tickets for the Reichstag visitors' gallery and enlisted an interpreter to accompany her.

Soon after their arrival, Bismarck rose and began to speak. The interpreter, however, simply sat listening with intense concentration. The woman, anxious for him to begin translating, nudged and budged him, to no avail.

Finally, unable to control herself any longer, the woman burst out: "What is he saying!?" "Patience, madam," the interpreter replied. "I am waiting for the verb."

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Re:How to Write in Plain English by StavrosK on Tuesday August 25, 2020 @03:12PM (#24274877)

> Als Gregor Samsa eines Morgens aus unruhigen Träumen erwachte, fand er sich in seinem Bett zu einem ungeheueren Ungeziefer verwandelt.

"As Gregor Samsa one morning from restless dreams awoke, found he himself in his bed into a huge verminous bug transformed."

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Re:How to Write in Plain English by dgellow on Tuesday August 25, 2020 @09:44AM (#24271248)

> Als Gregor Samsa eines Morgens aus unruhigen Träumen erwachte, fand er sich in seinem Bett zu einem ungeheueren Ungeziefer verwandelt.

Haha, that's a nice one, thanks for sharing :)

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