On Fri, 06 Feb 2004 10:17:47 +0200
Davida Chazan - The Chocolate Lady > wrote:

> (Please NOTE: My correct e-mail address is in my Signature) On Wed, 4
> Feb 2004 03:08:33 -0700, during the rec.food.baking Community News
> Flash Eric Jorgensen > reported:
>
> >On Wed, 04 Feb 2004 08:55:55 +0200
> >Davida Chazan - The Chocolate Lady > wrote:
> >
> >> NOTE: My Correct Address is in my signature (just remove the
> >spaces).> On Tue, 03 Feb 2004 21:41:15 GMT,
> (Seppo> Sipil?) wrote:
> >>
> >> >Hi all, I'm translating Roald Dahl's memoirs and got stuck with
> >> >"currant cake". As "currant" has two meanings (berries and
> >raisins),> >I don't know which one is correct.
> >> >
> >> I'd go with the raisins, since it makes sense that they would be in
> >a> cake that needed to travel well.
> >
> >
> > The currants i know and love
>
> While this was fascinating (it really, really was, actually), let's
> not forget that the person just needed to know what is close for him
> to use when translating the word.
>
> (I was speaking as a writer, not a baker in this sense!)


Oh, I agree. I sorta hoped to address that, but without knowing what
language it's being translated into (I'm presuming it was originally
written in english) it's tough to make a specific suggestion, because
even nouns vary in their meaning from culture to culture and from era
to era.

Translators ultimately end up making judgment calls. Sometimes
they're weird.

Example: at the beginning of a particular japanese movie,
if you watch the original subtitled japanese release from the early
90's, the subtitle says "Give me three red bennies" - but if you watch
the special edition re-release from 2000, it reads "give me three
peanuts". This was really confusing, since the character speaking is a
member of a biker gang called the 'red bennies', and he wears a
red jacket with an enlarged image of a red and white capsule on the
back.

It turned out that when the movie was originally made,'red benny'
was common slang for a methamphetamine pill. But in 2000, the common
slang for a methamphetamine in japan was 'peanut'. Somehow the
translators decided that what they were translating was "popular street
name for speed" rather than "The name of Kaneida's biker gang, in order
for us to properly foreshadow the ensuing chase scene."

So, anyway, now that the etymology in english is clear, one can then
compare that to the etymology in the target language, whatever that may
be. Like i said, "pimento" is allspice berries in some cases, bell
peppers in others, occasionally black pepper, and additionally whatever
that is they stuff in olives and make pimento spread out of, which
doesn't look or taste like like any of the above to me. We have the
spanish to thank for that conundrum.