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So is it year of the Rat or year of the Mouse? Because those are different.

vellocet

By vellocet
in Tattoos, Names and Quick Translations

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imron

imron

Posted
Posted
9 hours ago, roddy said:

Ok, so I've solved this. 

Not so fast.  There are versions of the story where the rat didn't wake the cat for duplicitous reasons.  Not to mention he then freeloaded on ox to cross the river, only to then jump off ox to take first place for himself.

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realmayo

realmayo

Posted
Posted

A book about translation by Umberto Eco is called "Mouse or Rat?"

 

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Eco suggests that translation is a 'negotiation' not just between words but between cultures. Mouse or Rat? refers to the scene in Hamlet when the melancholy prince cries: 'How now! A rat!' and stabs Polonius through the curtains.

 

In Italian, Eco tells us, ratto is not an insult, and topo can stand for mouse or rat. A shriek of 'Come? Un topo?' workably suggests a sense of surprise to an Italian Shakespeare-going audience, though the other connotations of 'rat' in English are absent.

 

 

(via - and apologies for linking to the guardian -  https://www.theguardian.com/books/2004/jan/04/referenceandlanguages.umbertoeco )

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