And why would I not read Niebuhr in the original language? I
have a friend and colleague who likes to read Agatha Christie in Polish, but
she’s weird in more ways than that.
Herb
From: Assembly for the
Teaching of English Grammar [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Brad
Johnston
Sent: 2009-03-19 09:42
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Sonnet grammar analysis help
|
Unless you're reading it in German, you need to factor in
the translator's punctuation preferences. I have traversed some byways trying to determine
the translator's effect on the grammar of an original, with little
definitive to report. In general, it can be said that once an author or a
translator is in print, the whys and wherefores are difficult to elicit. I’ve
been reading Reinhold Niebuhr’s Moral Man and Immoral Society, published in
1932, and I’ve been surprised by his use of commas. He uses them before
restrictive relative clauses, between subjects and verbs, before or after
long constructions. If one reads some of his sentences aloud, they work
well, and at least some of the odd commas seem to mark pauses. What
surprised me was that by the 1930s comma use had fairly well stabilized, and
here’s a major writer who does what he wants with them. Herb |
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