Here we go...

So I asked a terminology question in ru_translate, in which I asked for someone to explain something "for me." Among the responses are several reasonably good answers that I can work with, and a comment regarding my usage that has sparked a lively usage discussion, in which I have just stated the following:

Well, I will concede that "to explain (something) (to someone)" is certainly a legitimate and recognized usage. However, equally legitimate is, simply, "to explain (something)," as in: "Allow me to explain my meaning."

The fundamental challenge faced by those who compile learner's dictionaries is that they must, of necessity, cut the complexity of a real, living language down to easily digested, bite-sized chunks, and there's nothing at all wrong with that. But the manner in which a language is presented in such references should not be mistaken for the manner in which a language is used by native speakers, and certainly not as a blueprint for The Only Correct Way In Which A Language May Be Used.

There are nine-and-sixty ways of constructing tribal lays,
And every single one of them is right!

Apropos of the "corpus" approach, a Google search I just did for "explain * to me" (with the asterisk and quotes) netted approximately 1.5 million hits. A search for "explain * for me" (with the asterisk and quotes) came up with 1.1 million hits. It would appear that, for better of worse, the latter pattern is in rather widespread use. (Or am I simply using the "wrong" corpus? And if I am, who gets to decide what is right and what is wrong in this regard?)

Cordially...

P.S. A similar comparison of Google hits for "объясните мне" vs. "объясните для меня" yielded 2.1 million hits for the former and only 40,000 for the latter. This result is much more decisive, I'd say.

P.P.S. You wouldn't, incidentally, have anything to say about my original terminological question, would you? :^)

Yikes!

Cheers...

Barely moving...

It is a good thing I'm not much of a football fan, because I pretty much had to spend all my waking hours today dealing with what has turned out to be one doozy of a file with pathological formatting.

I had intended to spend the day translating, but the last section of the document I'm working on is written in incorrect, stilted Russian that makes me think it is a poor translation from an English original. And since there was no way of getting hold of my client's project manager today, I simply switched what I was intending to do today and tomorrow, pending input from my client.

In the end, it was probably good that things turned out the way they did, because I sorely underestimated the effort that was required to deal with various graphics and formatting issues.

It's been one long day, let me tell you...