The sign was really so big because the German was repeated in English
on the bottom half.
--- In BoundaryPoint@yahoogroups.com, "aletheiak" <aletheiak@y...> wrote:
> --- In BoundaryPoint@yahoogroups.com, "Lowell G. McManus"
<mcmanus71496@m...>
> wrote:
> > By "whatever it was or should have been called," I was referring
only to the
> > name on the sign: "Extraterritoriales Gebiet," which seems to
have sparked some
> > debate.
> >
> > I've been experimenting with on-line translation engines (without
which I would
> > be completely lost in German). The words "Extraterritoriales
Gebiet" are
> > commonly rendered into English as "Extraterritorial Area," but the
word "extra"
> > (by itself) translates from German to English as "specially."
(Google, Babel
> > Fish, and Tsunami all agree.) Perhaps, "Extraterritoriales
Gebiet" means a
> > "Specially Territorial Area" (which it certainly was), rather than
an area that
> > was extraterritorial in the usual English-language sense of that term.
>
> ok but can an area even be territorial in normal english
> without also being either redundant or confusing or just plain amusing
> let alone specially territorial
> yikes
> or extraterritorial yet
> again
>
> yikes
> hahahahahaha
>
>
>
>
> but why not just render this somewhat more freely instead as
> special area
> or
> area off limits
> or some such simple & natural phrase
> & be well satisfied with that
> since the german phrase was used as a heading & was followed by a
full explanation
> anyway
> & good german is generally more capacious than good english anyway
> & also since there doesnt appear to be anything else particularly
suitable that is available
> in english anyway
> nor anything else particularly true about the actual thing itself anyway
> that we might fairly interpolate here without getting either our
poetic artistic or translators
> license suspended
>
>
> for what it really seems to me to have sparked is just an
extravagance of the usual
> miscomprehension
> & a semantic debacle rather than any debate
> compounded at length by fairly random translation
>
> not that i would prefer any of these distracted aberrations to the
others
> hahahahaha
> but it is all in a days play at the funhouse
>
> & i would say the really good news you certainly have brought is
concentrated in the idea
> of special
>
> for we certainly have been treated to some special freakin areas here
> & even beyond saving us a lot of mental struggle
> this new idea & word brings us directly back to our central point of
origin
>
>
> for indeed what is so special about trypointing