So I was searching for my name on GNUtella (via Limewire) and I find a file called “joe maller.exe” on this host 24.68.178.120. Since I don’t even own a PC, I have no idea what this is. I just hope it’s not the next global sircam virus or something.

Yesterday I spent entirely too long on an off-topic reply to a post on the DV-L mailing list. Someone had made a joke in English which was misunderstood by someone for whom English is a second (or third) language.

This all reminded me of a Nietzsche quote I read several years ago. I didn’t immediately remember it was Nietzsche’s, but found the quote in a few minutes with Google. The quote itself was about translation, and was made more ironic having itself been translated from German. The quote is entry 184 from Friedrich Nietzsche’s book “Human, All Too Human” (Menschliches, Allzumenschliches) published in 1878.

“It is neither the best nor the worst things in a book that defy translation.”

Also translated somewhat differently as:

“It is neither the best nor worst of a book that is untranslatable.”

Babelfish made this mess:

“Neither the best, nor the worst at beech, which at it is untranslatable, are.”

Finally someone on the list had a german friend translate it as:

Untranslatable – It is neither the best nor the worst about a book that cannot be translated.

Finding that in English didn’t take very long. Finding it in German, in which I am 90% illiterate took much longer:

Unübersetzbar. – Es ist weder das Beste, noch das Schlechteste an einem Buche, was an ihm unübersetzbar ist.

The complete text is available online:

Deutsche:
Menschliches, Allzumenschliches

English:
Human, All Too Human

I like having access to the original language a work was written in. Even if I can’t read it, seeing the shapes of the words provides insight into the work that would be lost through the distortion of translation.

Some years after Nietzsche published, Robert Frost said similarly: “Poetry is what gets lost in translation.” (Robert Frost was four years old when Human All Too Human was first published.)

Metafilter is still alive. Now FilePile needs to come back to life.

Kodak wrote an article about my friend Dave Park

This would be the first Blogger test, which will no doubt come back to haunt me…