Just a question.
The Paris Savannah Connection Newsletter: November 12, 2010
One of the most beautiful words in English is very difficult to translate into French. That word is Care. Capital C.
To my mind, caring means putting others in the forefront while relinquishing some of our own ego-centric impulses, attitudes and behaviors.
Caring is active generosity. It is respect and consideration and … has such a high cost that only those who have hearts of gold seem to be able to afford it! Because, precisely, it comes from the heart, maybe the soul, with an ounce, or a gram or even less – of reason.
You don’t have to be rich to care. Just human.
Caring is welcoming. It is hospitality of the highest order. It is opening and giving, donating without a tax- deductible receipt. It is Inviting. It is Sharing.
Caring is giving. Not lending. There’s no tangible payback to caring. Even though miraculously, unexpectedly, we’re often paid back in a time of need. And if we aren’t, it doesn’t matter anyway!
How powerful are the words, once pronouned: « I care. » And how insensitive the negative.
Caring is dialogue. It is listening and speaking in return. It is questioning. Not knowing all the answers. It is being attentive to the needs of the other. How extraordinary it is to witness two people fight over how much they have to give to one another! Caring is a private affair.
Caring is devotion. To someone. To a community. To a cause. It’s a human thing … and maybe that’s where the term ‘humanitarian’ – Caring in the public sphere – comes from. Caring is a public affair, too.
The English verb « to take care of » has evolved over the years, decades and centuries. While it retains some of the essence in some uses, it’s meaning has been transformed into others. It now has additional uses, practical impersonal uses – and sometimes even murderous ones, believe it or not! Read Marleen Dowd’s editorial in the IHT if you’re curious about that one!
Hearts talk and actions speak.
Take care,
And take care of those you care for. You won’t regret it. For more, go to … The Paris Savannah Connection! Mark
PS. By the way, the most frequent translations of the noun into French are « soin » and « soins » – not the same thing! And the verb « soigner » can have lots of meanings …!
The PSC Newletter Nov 12, 2010
Listen to it!
[audio:http://www.paris-savannah.com/wp-content/uploads/Care.mp3|titles=Care]Related Images:
Newsletter November 10, 2010
Backgrounds! What a word! What ideas!
What comes to mind when you hear this word? Do you think in terms of a figurative painting or photograph and see what is “behind” the subject? Do you see the landscape rather than the tree in the … forefront?
Do you see perspectives going back far to the horizon? Do you see the background? Do you see other visuals as in movies … even those you can see on TV!
What’s happening not up close … but the wider picture. What’s behind. If you’re looking further than what first meets the eye … you’re opening your eyes to the background rather than focusing on what perceive “up front.”
(BTW, Here’s a word about cinemas/theatres in Paris.)
Or do you think of background as your own … background? As in your own culture, home environment? This, too is your background.
Background loves adjectives. Like … academic. What’s your academic background? This, of course, refers to what schools you went to, what degrees you got, the subjects you studied and … those you avoided studying; Your academic background is included but is different from your ‘educational’ background which is a much wider description and can include non-academic learning … millions of skills that can never be taught in schools. Your background is your experience. Your life history.
And of course … professional. What’s your professional background? It’s in … IT (Information technology) or in marketing, or in financial consulting or in law. Or in medicine. Or in anthropology. Or forestry. Or botany. As a pastry chef. Or even … the ever more sophisticated activity of buying and selling … otherwise known under the generic term you see in the newspaper every day: Business.
How would you translate this concept into French, into another language?
C’est l’arrière plan? Mais aussi c’est l’histoire! Notre histoire. Notre expérience!
Photography and language have a lot in common: They’re both about perceiving the world from up close, from “normal” and from far back. They’re both sources and means of expression.
Relax … and you’ll get the picture. The whole picture.
Thanks for reading today’s Paris Savannah Connection!
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The tea leaves say …
From The New Yorker … quite a while back, still true.
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… making a mountain out of a molehill …
exaggeration > amplification > overstating > creating a catastrophe out of a relatively minor issue.
One of my students is finally getting over a real complex about using “for” and “since” … sound familiar? She’s very, very fluent and native speakers admire her agility and culture in English. Right now, we’re doing memory work.
English teachers in France have traumatized millions and millions of their students over the years with this. I’m sure no other element has appeared in French schools’ English grammar tests as much as these three little words: for, since, ago.
(Depuis … le temps …. )
Sure, we say “for ages” and not “since ages” … but as the French say: “Il n’y a pas mort d’homme.” (No one’s died from it.)
And in English … need we insist on making a mountain out of a molehill ? … Sure try to get it right … but if you don’t … why make a mountain out of a molehill?
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Private Paris
It takes the New York Times to let us in on our own secrets!
If you’d like a taste of secret Paris, here’s the first course.
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There’s e.t.a., eta, ETA and E.T.A. …
When S. used the abbreviation “e.t.a.” the other day, it took me a minute to catch on.
“What’s your “e.t.a.?” she asked her mom on the phone.
Well over in France and in Spain, those initials refer to a Basque separatist movement.
In travel-intensive North America, it does not, to my knowledge, refer to a secessionist tendency.
It does have to do with time, though_
“What’s your e.t.a.?”
“Between 12 and 12:30” … That’s to say, just in time for lunch.
E.T.A. = Estimated Time of Arrival
A fine substitute for “What time do you think you’ll get here?”
For the others, try wikipedia …
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soup and slang
On our bi-monthly hike through the countrysides and forests outside of Paris, Géraldine asked: “What’s the word for “oseille” in English?” One of the hikers immediately remembered Woody Allen’s 1969 film “Take the money and run” via its French title: “Prends l’oseille et tire-toi” … Allen used the word “money” though he could have said “dough” … That’s the slang version … In French, the translator might also have said “fric,” slang for …dough … bucks …
So … one of the translations for “oseille” … is indeed … cash.
But oseille is not just slang. It’s a plant, somewhat resembling spinach and it’s not only a very healthy thing to eat, but also quite a tasty one. There are good soups made with it, good sauces, too, especially for fish, and especially for lake and river fish, I believe.
For the life of me, I couldn’t think of the name of the plant in English. This happens. Zen.
Just a little while ago, I opened my email and this is what I found:
“Sorrel? Best G”
She got it. But then, what else would you expect from a nutritionist sinologist ?
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Newsletter: 21 October 2010
One of the ways I use to discover vocabulary or semantic gaps in someone’s language habits is to see what word associations and particularly which polar opposites my client can recall quickly … which words and ideas are actually active … and which are still “on the tip of the tongue.”
For example, if I ask for the opposite of the English word “hot” … I want to know whether or not you’ll come up with a word like “cold” … rather instantly. If the keyword is “near,” then I’m looking for the presence or absence of the words “far” or ‘distant.’ If the keyword were to be “nice,” I’d be interested to know just about any negative word that comes to mind.
Proceeding this way, I’m able to identify the gaps that are often the sources of frustration. This occurs when we’re speaking a foreign language … not to mention our own native languages!
What’s interesting is that between languages, the thought patterns are like Venn diagrams. Sometimes the word pairs coincide and are easily transposable from one language to the other … but in other cases they aren’t. One of the most frequently used words in English is the word “good.” If you are a native English speaker, chances are you will instinctively and immediately say that the opposite is … “bad.” Not because others – evil, for instance – aren’t “right,” but because good and bad are the most frequently used to refer to the same things. A good movie, a bad movie; the good guys, the bad guys … etc. The perfectly valid opposite pair “good/evil” is just slightly less frequent … though I think there was an American president who tended to see the world that way .. -:)
Now if you take the word “right” … what’s the opposite? Is it “wrong” or is it “bad” ?
We think in terms of words and groups of words. In English, we’d say for instance:
“Sorry … you’ve got the wrong number” … But unless they’re CONSCIOUS of this instance, the French might say … “Sorry … You’ve got the bad number.” or … if they’re mentally translating before speaking “You did the false number.” (in this imaginary situation, of course!)
Why? Because in French the opposite pair for a phone number or other factual information like email addresses or flight info, etc. would be … “bon” (right, good, correct, accurate) and “faux” (wrong, mistaken, erroneous, false);
Thinking in different languages involves exploring these semantic fields.
A last quiz … “What’s the opposite of “now” ?
The answer is in the title of today’s post … about the French phototographer, Eugène Atget. Enjoy it.
Photography in Paris: Eugène Atget … then and now.
And thanks for reading today’s The Paris Savannah Connection.
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