[Sca-cooks] C.A. translation and organization questions

Patricia Dunham chimene at ravensgard.org
Sat Nov 2 16:11:50 PDT 2013


Just a random reader chiming in, 8-)  Have been collecting period cookbooks for a LONG time, so have seen a lot of layout & editing possibilities.

COMPLETELY agree with Jim's note that, basically, you can do anything you want, as long as you CLEARLY inform your readers what you are doing, where, that will be different than in the original.

1. We wouldn't find the "passive" voice a problem at all. Some languages use passive a LOT more than "modern-amur'cn-active", and I think(?) Turkish is one of those? We also agree about the "flavor of times past"-ness, 8-)

2. As Jim said, where added words will clarify, just do it and use the conventional square brackets. 

3. Agree with Jim's opinion - retain original order, do any grouping in additional indexes. 

4. Adding modern versions of the recipes. This is harder. I personally am somewhat more used to the modern form of having the "worked out" directly follow the translated original. However, in the books I'm familiar with, this is usually done for ALL the recipes. Not just a few randomly scattered through the originals. Which you have also already indicated are ALSO in random order!

Himself comments that personally he likes the layout point of having the worked-out, OR the translation, in an inset-box -- increases visual clarity about where one starts and the other leaves off. Publisher may have concerns about that...

IF you put the "worked outs" in a separate section, are you thinking of re-arranging THEM by any scheme? That section might be MUCH easier to use if it was organized in some fashion...

How many "worked outs" are there going to be, relative to the number of originals? i.e., 10%, or 70% worked-outs? That might give a clue to which method would be less confusing to the reader.

Chimene & Gerek


On Nov 2, 2013, at 1:00 PM, <lilinah at earthlink.net> <lilinah at earthlink.net> wrote:

> I have a couple questions about translation. No, i'm not asking anyone to help me with the Turkish, although i could use some. Rather, my questions are about something we've discussed on this list from time to time: how faithfully should a translation follow the original?
> ...




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