Discussion Main / LostInTranslation

Uh, about this example:

• The story of Jesus and the Syrophoenician woman has Jesus call a gentile woman a dog. This may sound rude and mean, especially seeing as "dog" is used as an insult elsewhere in the New Testament. However, the insult-word meaning "dog" is kúōn, which Jesus din't actually use - instead he called the woman kunárion, meaning "little dog". In short, Jesus was subverting an insult, not using it (but that won't show in most translations).

...Can someone explain how being called "doggy" instead of "you dog" is subverting an insult? I feel like I would still be offended, possibly even more so, since the diminutive implies even more lowliness than a standard dog. (Okay, I probably wouldn't be offended if Jesus were the one using it to me, but I would still be confused, and the example is unclear in any distinction.)

From the page:

"Even those still known can pose a problem. Most clergy and studious laymen are familiar with three of the four Greek words for love: 'eros,' meaning a romantic attraction; 'philia', more of a friendly type of caring or loyalty; and 'agape,' which in ancient Greek was the kind of unconditional, absolute love that would cause you to sacrifice your life for a person. All three are translated 'love' in all versions of the English Bible. While it's not always detrimental, it really subtracts from the passage where Jesus asks Peter 3 times if he loves him. The first two, he uses philia, the third time, agape."

The last sentence has it backwards. Jesus uses agape twice, and ends with philia. Peter uses philia all three times.

Linking to a past Trope Repair Shop thread that dealt with this page: Bad examples, started by arromdee on Dec 22nd 2010 at 8:54:40 PM

• I Will Definitely Protect You is an unusual example. The original phrase zettai ni mamoru is almost always translated as I Will Definitely Protect You. The awkwardness of the phrase sounds like someone couldn't be bothered to translate it appropriately for the context, since the depth of its meaning is very contextual. However, if the translation took into account the context, it would entirely lose the humor of its use, which is almost always based on a misunderstanding of the context in which it's used. Then to get even more meta, it's probably also entirely unintentional that the original context is missed and probably really is just lazy translation.

Is it just me, or is this a very confusingly-written example? Is someone able to rephrase it in a way that makes any sense at all? Because I have absolutely no idea what it's trying to say, or what its point is.