{"id":12914,"date":"2008-11-22T15:38:28","date_gmt":"2008-11-22T15:38:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2008\/11\/22\/an-ambiguous-translation-from-giacomo-leopardi-17981837\/"},"modified":"2008-11-22T15:38:28","modified_gmt":"2008-11-22T15:38:28","slug":"an-ambiguous-translation-from-giacomo-leopardi-17981837","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2008\/11\/22\/an-ambiguous-translation-from-giacomo-leopardi-17981837\/","title":{"rendered":"An Ambiguous Translation from Giacomo Leopardi (1798-1837)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"FONT-SIZE: 15px; FONT-FAMILY: Times New Roman\"><em>Nessun maggior segno d&#39;essere poco filosofo e poco savio, che volere savia e filosofica tutta la vita.<\/p>\n<p><\/em><span style=\"FONT-SIZE: 15px; COLOR: #00bf00; FONT-FAMILY: Times New Roman\">There&#39;s no greater sign of being a poor philosopher and wise man than wanting all of life to be wise and philosophical. (Giacomo Leopardi, <strong>Pensieri<\/strong>, tr. W. S. Di Piero, Baton Rouge: Lousiana State University Press, 1981, p. 69)<br \/><\/span><br \/>Do you see how the translation imports an ambiguity that is not present in the Italian original? &#39;Poor philosopher and wise man&#39; could mean either (<em>poor philosopher) and wise man<\/em> or <em>poor philosopher and poor wise man.<\/em>&#0160; There is no such ambiguity in the original since <em>poco<\/em> qualifies both <em>filosofo<\/em> and <em>savio<\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"FONT-SIZE: 15px; FONT-FAMILY: Times New Roman\">I will be told that the aphorism as a whole makes clear the intended meaning.&#0160; Indeed, it does, but I have just wasted time on disambiguation.&#0160; Why not write it right the first time so that the reader needn&#39;t puzzle over the meaning?&#0160; It is relevant to point out that a philosopher is not the same as a wise man. A philosopher is a lover, not a possessor, of wisdom.&#0160; <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"FONT-SIZE: 15px; FONT-FAMILY: Times New Roman\">&quot;You, sir, are a pedant.&quot;&#0160; And proud of it.&#0160; We could use more scrupulosity in all areas of life.<br \/><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Nessun maggior segno d&#39;essere poco filosofo e poco savio, che volere savia e filosofica tutta la vita. There&#39;s no greater sign of being a poor philosopher and wise man than wanting all of life to be wise and philosophical. (Giacomo Leopardi, Pensieri, tr. W. S. Di Piero, Baton Rouge: Lousiana State University Press, 1981, p. &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2008\/11\/22\/an-ambiguous-translation-from-giacomo-leopardi-17981837\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;An Ambiguous Translation from Giacomo Leopardi (1798-1837)&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[181],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12914","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aphorisms-by-others"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12914","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12914"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12914\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}