I Could Care Less About Translating Each Word
We have an expression in English: “I could care less.” And what’s funny about the saying is that it seems like it should be “I couldn’t care less.” The image is of something about which I care so little that there is no way I could care less.
I imagine two approaches to translating that English phrase into a foreign language. One approach translates word by word, not daring to add the “missing” negative. The other apporach translates phrase by phrase.
Three questions come to mind:
1. Which approach will yield a better translation?
2. What investigative techniques would let a translator recognize that this English phrase shouldn’t be taken literally?
3. What can we learn from this example to help us translate ancient Hebrew and Greek?
(While the English “I could care less” is extreme, it is not unique. Modern Hebrew has a pleonastic negative. In Hebrew, “Park wherever you don’t find a spot” means “park wherever you find a spot.” I think French has something similar, but I can’t remember the details.)
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God Didn’t Say That (@GodDidntSayThat) is an online forum for discussing the Bible and its translations, mistranslations, interpretations, and misinterpretations.
Dr. Joel M. Hoffman is the chief translator for the ten-volume series My People’s Prayer Book, author of And God Said: How Translations Conceal the Bible’s Original Meaning, and editor of The Unabridged Bible. Writing under “J.M. Hoffman,” he is author of the thriller series The Warwick Files. He holds a PhD in theoretical linguistics and has taught at Brandeis University and HUC-JIR in New York City. He presents widely to churches, synagogues, and other groups. more…
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