Post by nutsberryfarm 🏜 on Apr 19, 2019 22:18:58 GMT
lareviewofbooks.org/article/i-have-the-best-words-on-berengere-viennots-la-langue-de-trump/
PITY THE POOR translator in the age of Trump. Finding the mot juste to convey one’s own thoughts is already difficult; perhaps more so is finding the mot juste to convey another’s thoughts. A difficulty of an entirely different magnitude, however, is to find the right words to convey another’s thoughtlessness. To cast our president’s words into another language is, with apologies to John Milton, to remake not just the darkness, but the sheer daftness visible.
Is Trump’s language merely daft, though? Over the past two years, his use and abuse of words has spawned an industry of specialists and scholars. Some find Trump’s capacity for self-expression is no greater than a child’s, while others find it is no lesser than that of other demagogues. What strikes his base as authentic staggers his critics as incoherent. While many believe Trump’s word salads signify the absence of design, others insist that even salads are, as a French menu reminds us, composée.
Okay, you caught me: I’ve just committed a faux ami. Une salade composée is not a carefully composed salad, but a bunch of veggies as mixed as I am in my linguistic confusion. No doubt Bérengère Viennot, one of France’s most articulate translators, would point this out. But she is after bigger poissons to fry in her punchy, powerful book, which richly deserves an American edition.
PITY THE POOR translator in the age of Trump. Finding the mot juste to convey one’s own thoughts is already difficult; perhaps more so is finding the mot juste to convey another’s thoughts. A difficulty of an entirely different magnitude, however, is to find the right words to convey another’s thoughtlessness. To cast our president’s words into another language is, with apologies to John Milton, to remake not just the darkness, but the sheer daftness visible.
Is Trump’s language merely daft, though? Over the past two years, his use and abuse of words has spawned an industry of specialists and scholars. Some find Trump’s capacity for self-expression is no greater than a child’s, while others find it is no lesser than that of other demagogues. What strikes his base as authentic staggers his critics as incoherent. While many believe Trump’s word salads signify the absence of design, others insist that even salads are, as a French menu reminds us, composée.
Okay, you caught me: I’ve just committed a faux ami. Une salade composée is not a carefully composed salad, but a bunch of veggies as mixed as I am in my linguistic confusion. No doubt Bérengère Viennot, one of France’s most articulate translators, would point this out. But she is after bigger poissons to fry in her punchy, powerful book, which richly deserves an American edition.