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Put on that thinking cap!
Nov. 30th, 2012 04:18 pmThe first of the long-deadline items appears to be a bit more literary than the dry technical stuff that comprises pretty much all my work. A case in point is the use of "по гамбургскому счету" in an article discussing educational ontology.
Literally, "по гамбургскому счету" translates as "in the manner of the Hamburg score" (or "... of Hamburg scoring"). By itself, the phrase means little, as it requires more than a modicum of (Russian) "cultural literacy" to fathom. Fortunately, the Internet is a deep, deep stream.
And, as it turns out, the phrase comes from the title of a story written by Soviet writer Viktor Shklovsky, in which he relates how, according to legend, wrestlers from around the world—whose public victories and losses are the result of orders received from managers and impresarios—take time off each year to meet up at some dive in Hamburg where they lock the doors, curtain the windows, and then have at each other, mano a mano, in private, to determine who is really the best and baddest of them all.
And so, as it turns out, determining something "in the manner of the Hamburg score" means to figure out the actual and not the official place someone (or something) occupies in a hierarchy.
Realizing that the collocation "Hamburg score" is in (relatively) wide use as a translation, I do not like it. So much so, I am leaning toward translating/updating this as "in Hamburg fashion" instead (albeit the meaning of my try is not very "intuitively obvious," either). As I still have some time, perhaps I can come up with something that just fits the bill and doesn't mention Hamburg at all.
Just sayin'... :^)
Literally, "по гамбургскому счету" translates as "in the manner of the Hamburg score" (or "... of Hamburg scoring"). By itself, the phrase means little, as it requires more than a modicum of (Russian) "cultural literacy" to fathom. Fortunately, the Internet is a deep, deep stream.
And, as it turns out, the phrase comes from the title of a story written by Soviet writer Viktor Shklovsky, in which he relates how, according to legend, wrestlers from around the world—whose public victories and losses are the result of orders received from managers and impresarios—take time off each year to meet up at some dive in Hamburg where they lock the doors, curtain the windows, and then have at each other, mano a mano, in private, to determine who is really the best and baddest of them all.
And so, as it turns out, determining something "in the manner of the Hamburg score" means to figure out the actual and not the official place someone (or something) occupies in a hierarchy.
Realizing that the collocation "Hamburg score" is in (relatively) wide use as a translation, I do not like it. So much so, I am leaning toward translating/updating this as "in Hamburg fashion" instead (albeit the meaning of my try is not very "intuitively obvious," either). As I still have some time, perhaps I can come up with something that just fits the bill and doesn't mention Hamburg at all.
Just sayin'... :^)
