#so its a similar situation as the consenting cycling repairmen euphemism anathema used | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

shittywriterbrain · 1 year ago

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this post just grows longer and longer but i found something else, on page 437. it‘s about the delivery man getting the flaming sword back from aziraphale. the original: “then he approached the couple with the bottle.“ the translation: “dann näherte er sich erziraphael und crowley“ (then he approached aziraphale and crowley).

maybe i‘m overanalyzing this but couple does have certain connotations that are completely missing from the translation. apart from that it‘s also just a different sentence. i have no experience with translation myself so this might be okay, still it‘s strange.

Idk if you know, but the German publisher of the Good Omens book added a line that Crowley had a thing with women in Ancient Rome. Like… he slept with them. It has been in the German translated book version for years. Even thought it was - obviously- never in the original English book version. It was added by the German translation team… for whatever reason.

I am running a Little „campaign“ to get that line erased.

Anything you want to say to the German publisher?

Why? I mean, why????? And yes, that's bad. Not inserting Soup Ads bad. But it's bad.

#i dont necessarily read couple as in theyre romantic in the book #i did underline it because i was like teehee theyre described as a couple #but it is weird to remove it from the translation #regardless of intent #good omens #just realised that paragraph is vaguely from the delivery guys perspective meaning he thinks of them as a couple #so its a similar situation as the consenting cycling repairmen euphemism anathema used #also. i understand that you dont always translate word for word i can imagine that you have to change the sentence a bit so it reads better #in german or any target language #but “dann näherte er sich dem paar mit der weinflache“ isnt harder to read than “dann näherte er sich erziraphael und crowley“#imo #ugh an addition but in the tags bc idk if it counts #on page 317 “poofter” (slur for gay men if i remember correctly) is translated to “lackaffe”#obvs ive heard lackaffe before but i had to look up the meaning and its def about like rich dandy pretentious men that kinda vibe #so it might fit but idk what the actual connotations are when you already know the word #tags longer than archimedes lever to lift the world but i felt like this was important

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