Translation II

[Jedrzej Polak]

> Just out of curiosity, is "difference" (or thereabouts) a
> Polish word by importation?

Sorry, no such chance. Polish term for "difference" is "roznica" with
diactrics above "o" and "z".  The guy who translated Derrida's "De la
gramatologie" invented a term "roz(ni(c)os)c  [ sic! with diacritics above
"o", "z", "s", and "c",  and  brackets implying the shades of meaning in
Polish].  Funny, tho hard in reading.

> I don't see why proper
> nouns and titles like Tupperware Party or Purple Haze or Kenosha Kid need to
> be translated into another language at all. We've been getting along just
> fine with plazas and sauerkraut and Santa Claus for years. It's a matter of
> understanding the concepts: the words themselves are unimportant.

That's the question I often ask myself. There are three choices: you leave
them as they are, and take for granted that the majority of readers are
aware of the cultural background (which unfortunately is not true); you make
footnotes and render the text unreadable; you try to be creative, and find
cultural equivalents in the vicinity (that's my approach). The same applies
to Pynchon's names: you leave them as they are, and risk that the readers
lose one of the layers of Pynhon's style, or you (as I do) make them
understandable with all kinds of your target language gimmicks. E.g. while
Teflon is understandable to everyone on the planet, Gland means nothing in
Polish, that's why his name in Polish is Groochow (phonetic for Polish
"gruczol" - "gland").

JP