Relocution

Edinburgh Castle audio guide in Russian. Great to have such positive feedback on my recent translation.

Thanks Gareth for alerting us to the Guardian story of Burton’s chic (sic) T-shirt with its trendy design proclaiming “Очистим Русь от нерусских”. The store’s buyers were told that this translated loosely as “Be proud of Russia”.

Sometimes, of course, loose translations aren’t good enough. A better translation might be: “Let’s cleanse Russia of all non-Russians”.

If you want one alas it’s too late: they’ve been withdrawn from sale. Burton’s buyers will spend the weekend writing out 100 times: “Мой ховеркрафт полн угорей”.

A report in London Info - a weekly newspaper for Russian community - this week highlights the Beatles Experience in Liverpool, and is particularly pleased to discover its audioguide, in Russian! It’s nice to have one’s work appreciated!

It was nice to read some positive feedback in this week’s London Info (weekly Russian language newspaper) for the Russian audio guide for The Beatles Story exhibition in Liverpool. Finished that in early 2006, so it’s great to think it’s already getting used.

As usual there were many cultural terms that needed careful researching - the language of rock and roll and Teddy boys, drainpipes and drapes, for example. And how do you translate a transcript of Paul McCartney singing “Come Go With Me” by the Del Vikings? It’s the one that starts “Dom dom dom dom dom, dom be dooby…”

Enjoyed today Andrew Hurley’s online story, The Zahir and I, a parody of the labyrinthine erudition of Borges’ ficciones. Reality and fantasy mingle seamlessly, confusingly, in this tale of a translator driven mad by such problems as finding “a suitable English word for the Spanish adjective atroz” and “languages that consist of nothing but verbs or nothing but adjectives or nothing but nouns with the vowels removed, like Arabic”. Of course these are but “meta-quests” and “metaphors” for the translator’s own condition. Such is the paradox of intertextuality, and vice versa.

“There is something monstrous about translations,” writes Hurley, “for they multiply the number of books.”

Borges is naturally one of cyberculture’s favourite authors: the inevitable meandering and googling that followed led me to more than a few interesting sites, among them The Second Encyclopedia of Tlon. A good set of Borges links is at Libyrinth.Com.