下班回家看報紙，見標題「羅馬大學辦納粹屠殺碩士課程」，嚇了一跳。怎麼？納粹黨何時屠殺過碩士生？看內文，方發現是羅馬大學開辦一個有關「納粹大屠殺」的碩士學位課程。害我嚇出了一身冷汗……
除了「納粹屠殺碩士」，不得不提「香港驕傲企業品牌」。不說名稱有歧義 (到底是說企業驕傲，還是品牌讓港人感到光榮自豪？)，一想起傳媒顛倒是非黑白，「驕傲」與「光榮自豪」不分，便忍不住滿肚子氣……
其實要氣，該氣為何放假天還要去上班 (難道真如運程書所言，自己是舢舨充炮艇？)，不過在地鐵站看見「和諧家庭在天水圍」的橫額，怒火便橫燒了過去。擺明是歐化句式，用中文寫來幹啥？用橫書便可了事乎？
不過，整天嚷著歐化句式害人，似乎有欠公允。看禁毒宣傳標語「不可一，不可再」的英文版「Not now, not ever」，原來中式英語亦早已登堂入室，成了主流。
English could be equally ambiguous in all kinds of sentences similar to that Nazi Holocaust MA degree expression.
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I remember "proud" was always a positive word when I was a kid. But ":pride" could be both negative and positive. Could it be that the modern translators were playing fast and loose with "proud" since in English, pride and proud share a root?
I don't understand your beef with the Tin Sui Wai sentence.
"Not now, not ever" is not Chinglish, I don't think. There's nothing wrong with it grammatically, that I know of...
[版主回覆01/31/2009 21:56:00]Good evening, Teach!
I should have come across some ambiguous English sentences but I couldn't recall so far.
Not just translators, but people in general are influenced by English. In Chinese we have 驕傲 (negative) and 光榮 (positive), but the media nowadays only use 驕傲 regardless of the context. I'm furious about this
Regarding the Tin Shui Wai sentence, I think it is a direct translation of 'Harmonious families in Tin Shui Wai'. The structure comes from English. (Maybe I'm a little picky ...)
You're right, Teach. 'Not now, not ever' is not Chinglish. But I don't like it anyway. Why can't they use 'never'? And to me, 'not now' implies that people can do it later ...
睇黎近年港人唔單止英文水準每況愈下,連中文水準都係咁.
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[版主回覆02/01/2009 20:33:00]香花與毒草：不只近年了，中文在香港一向「低英一等」，加上受大陸的中文污染，早已慘不忍睹。
Ok, a single "never" could replace "not now, not ever". I also agree that "not now" by itself implies it may change later. However, "not now, not ever" expresses a stronger feeling on the part of the author than a simple "never" does. So the longer expression is for emphasis purposes.
回覆刪除Speaking of English-influenced Chinese, here's one I've been wondering about. When I was a kid, the word 挑戰 always meant challenging to a fight. But nowadays, it's sometimes used to describe something difficult. Do you think its definition was infected by the English word "challenge" in its entirety?
回覆刪除[版主回覆02/01/2009 20:36:00]Teacher: You're right. It's another example of 歐化中文.
Translators/Reporters should be blamed for the widespread of 挑戰. There are different ways to translate 'challenge' but they just stick to one translation (no matter what the context is!)
而家香港不論中、英文o既水平都越唻越低呀！
回覆刪除[版主回覆02/01/2009 20:37:00]井兄：我覺得這個現象，絕對是人懶之過！
乏言以為若 proud 以“驕傲”譯之，略帶貶意，然以光榮代之，或稍過之。未知“自豪”是否適合些？ I am proud of my pupils 並非是驕傲，而是自豪吧。當然兩種語言文化不同，很難有一字或一詞以代。
回覆刪除[版主回覆02/03/2009 20:28:00]乏言先生說得對，光榮確實是過火了
語言太複雜，不可能有一對一的翻譯，惜現代人太懶，且凡事要快，不作推敲，見一字便譯一詞，要不得