What does it hint?

Depending on the situation, it would be more important to convey the meaning or emotion rather than the literal translation.

I.e. "I feel like shit" does not mean one needs to actually use the bathroom, but that they do not feel well.

TarnishedPenny said:

‘Mrs Brown’ was but a malicious rumour. I mean that.

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Miss Penny, I am mortified to have upset your delicate sensibilities by alluding to "relationships" with the help. I assure you that was not my intent. I do hope your piano doesn't blush .

Sincerely yours, etc.,

EB

EB,

Thanks, but I've never missed anything but last call, my first love and, oh yes, my first teddy bear. Him I still miss a lot.

May we all be forgiven for things done, things undone and, above all, sins uncommitted.

very nice of you all, thanks.

Talking about the above-mentioned lover story, it seems the ending comes too abruptly with things unfinished and no real answer provided, perhaps one of us could try the sequel to this great work. The plot may go like this: Clifford had an uncontrollable affair with Mrs. Bolton, as it was revealed in earlier chapter; Mellor's wife reappeared to get something to her favor (it takes some thinking, yeah); Mellors invented something that can make huge profit and change his financial condition greatly later; Connie had her baby born and raised, under the influence of her artistic friends and sister...etc

gxnn said:

very nice of you all, thanks.

Talking about the above-mentioned lover story, it seems the ending comes too abruptly with things unfinished and no real answer provided, perhaps one of us could try the sequel to this great work. The plot may go like this: Clifford had an uncontrollable affair with Mrs. Bolton, as it was revealed in earlier chapter; Mellor's wife reappeared to get something to her favor (it takes some thinking, yeah); Mellors invented something that can make huge profit and change his financial condition greatly later; Connie had her baby born and raised, under the influence of her artistic friends and sister...etc

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This might actually be the place for you to do that, gxnn. Learning by doing is the best method.

This thread has been a most interesting read. Suddenly, it appears the English language and it's comprehension is a world of subtleties. It would never have occurred to me how these idioms might cause problems to non-native speakers.

TarnishedPenny said:

...This is, in my opinion, [is] a problem plaguing every discipline. To make it look impressive to customers and peers, language is invented and inflated and you eventually wind up with indecipherable goo.

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Yes, yes, yes, and a hundred times, yes. This is a trend that really winds me up. It's intellectual masturbation and actually there's nothing clever about it. Most people can quite easily write indecipherable goo (as TP so aptly puts it). In my opinion, the real master of language is the one who can condense meaning.

electricblue66 said:

Yes, doing a plain English translation is hard, and actually takes a long time.

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Exactly. Writing concisely is a skill.

I once started a thread on this very topic. The idea was to encourage writers to take care with the use of descriptive, flowery phrases. The thread was hijacked somewhat (although I'll concede the hijacking was mildly amusing).

delicious_man said:

Exactly. Writing concisely is a skill.

I once started a thread on this very topic. The idea was to encourage writers to take care with the use of descriptive, flowery phrases. The thread was hijacked somewhat (although I'll concede the hijacking was mildly amusing).

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Ironically, a considerable part of my following here is that I don't write concisely - the EB, "lyrical, almost poetic style, flowing like a slow moving river" (to use words from several commentators over time) is pretty much my trade-mark style. It's not purple prose, but is very visually descriptive and evocative of mood - someone commented, "not much happens but it doesn't happen beautifully," (thus turning English on its head, because you're not meant to read THAT phrase with its plain English meaning).

In my professional life, which is projects and contract management, I nail plain English to the wall with a fucking hammer, because, "what bit about "you're late" don't you understand, mate?"

EB, DM - precisely. Nobody writes tech manuals in iambic pentameter and there’s a reason for that. Nor do normal people sit down with Wall Street annual reports for an evening’s entertainment. There’s a reason for that, too.

TarnishedPenny said:

EB, DM - precisely. Nobody writes tech manuals in iambic pentameter and there’s a reason for that. Nor do normal people sit down with Wall Street annual reports for an evening’s entertainment. There’s a reason for that, too.

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Waiiit... ah, it's okay. Thought you were questioning my normality for a moment there.

Carry on .

electricblue66 said:

Ironically, a considerable part of my following here is that I don't write concisely - the EB, "lyrical, almost poetic style..."

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Ah, but EB, I've read some of your work. Certainly your style is lyrical, poetic even, but your descriptions are usually well-chosen and you don't choose complexity for complexity's sake. Your sentences are simple where they need to be but you allow room for your words to breathe at other times. There is, in all of this, a certain conciseness.

When I talk about writing with 'condensed meaning' I don't suggest this means you have to reduce the number of words used to the absolute minimum. What I mean is that the words you do use should be chosen carefully and should say a great deal. By-and-large, from what I've come across, you do this well.

Besides, one of the wonderful things about literature is that everybody writes differently. We each have a voice that is our own. Some like to use heavier description. Some like to use a more complex sentence structure. Others prefer simplicity. For me, there is the potential for beauty in all approaches. Readers will find some styles resonate with them more than others. This variety is to be celebrated. To paraphrase 'Groove Armada' - if everybody wrote the same, we'd get tired of reading each other.

For me, one of the defining characteristics of poetry, something that sets it apart from ordinary prose, is the density of description. Yet poetry can also use complex language to achieve this. It's not complexity that I find grating. What I find grating is the over-complicating of language just to show off and look impressive. In fiction, this often leads to a profligacy of adjectives and adverbs that just lose any sense of meaning. I hope you know what I mean. It's when you read something that just makes you think that the author is trying too hard to prove their own cleverness and it ends up detracting from the clarity and flow.

delicious_man said:

Ah, but EB, I've read some of your work. Certainly your style is lyrical, poetic even, but your descriptions are usually well-chosen and you don't choose complexity for complexity's sake. Your sentences are simple where they need to be but you allow room for your words to breathe at other times. There is, in all of this, a certain conciseness.

When I talk about writing with 'condensed meaning' I don't suggest this means you have to reduce the number of words used to the absolute minimum. What I mean is that the words you do use should be chosen carefully and should say a great deal. By-and-large, from what I've come across, you do this well.

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Very kind words. Thank you .

electricblue66 said:

Waiiit... ah, it's okay. Thought you were questioning my normality for a moment there.

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Oh, no, good sir! Who would dare to disparage the extraordinary with the banner of mere 'normality'?

Happy New Year to You All

First, best wishes and nicest greetings from China across the Pacific Ocean to you all in the USA and other English-speaking countries. Happy New Year, my friends!

Next, a very long sentence that I need you to break down for my understanding because the relation of the parts are so closely connected that it is hard to separate them:

the Court affirmed the decision of the High Court to refuse an application by foreign individuals to commence a judicial review of the decision of the Comptroller of Income Tax (CIT) to issue Production Notices to obtain information from banks in Singapore following an exchange of information (EOI) request from the tax authority of South Korea

gxnn said:

First, best wishes and nicest greetings from China across the Pacific Ocean to you all in the USA and other English-speaking countries. Happy New Year, my friends!

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And the same to you from Australia!

Next, a very long sentence that I need you to break down for my understanding because the relation of the parts are so closely connected that it is hard to separate them:

the Court affirmed the decision of the High Court to refuse an application by foreign individuals to commence a judicial review of the decision of the Comptroller of Income Tax (CIT) to issue Production Notices to obtain information from banks in Singapore following an exchange of information (EOI) request from the tax authority of South Korea

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Oof, that's a heavy-duty sentence. It may be grammatically correct, but it's painful to read, and it also contains a fair bit of technical language which won't be easy to understand.

It seems to have been slightly edited from a media release here, which says:

At the hearing, the Court affirmed the High Court’s decision to refuse an application made by four foreign individuals (“the Appellants”) that requested to commence a judicial review against the decision of the Comptroller of Income Tax (“the Comptroller”) to issue statutory Production Notices to three banks in Singapore to obtain bank information, following an Exchange of Information (“EOI”) request from South Korea.

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From context, "the Court" here is the Singapore Court of Appeal. Some other words that might be relevant:

"Appellants" = people who are appealing something (in this case, a court decision).

"Comptroller" = somebody who oversees/audits financial accounts. (Originally a misspelling of "controller", see here for background.)

"Production Notices": these will be legal notices that require an organisation (in this case a bank) to provide certain information.

"Exchange of Information": a process where governments request information from one another to help deal with cases of tax evasion, see here for more info.

The sentence is describing a series of events, but each of them is a response to the one that's mentioned next. It's a similar structure to: "I am hungry, because I have no food, because I have no money, because I have no job".

This means that the events are listed in the reverse of the order in which they happened. So it might be easier to understand what's going on if we read the pieces in reverse order:

1. following an Exchange of Information (“EOI”) request from South Korea.

2. the decision of the Comptroller of Income Tax (“the Comptroller”) to issue statutory Production Notices to three banks in Singapore to obtain bank information

3. four foreign individuals (“the Appellants”) that requested to commence a judicial review against [the decision discussed above]

4. the High Court’s decision to refuse an application made by [the Appellants]

5. At the hearing, the Court [of Appeal] affirmed the High Court’s decision

Putting these back together:

1. South Korea (presumably the South Korean government) made an "Exchange of Information" request. From context, they made this request to the government of Singapore.

2. In response to this request, the Singaporean Comptroller of Income Tax decided to issue a legal request (Production Notice) that required three banks to provide bank information.

3. Four foreign individuals (i.e. not Singaporeans) objected to this decision, and requested that the courts review it.

I would guess that these individuals were South Korean nationals, or otherwise associated with South Korea, and that the South Korean government suspected them of using Singaporean bank accounts to avoid paying taxes in South Korea. Hence the South Korean government would have requested assistance from Singapore in providing information about their bank accounts, and these individuals wouldn't have wanted SK to get that information.

4. The High Court refused to grant this application. That is, they allowed the Production Notice to go ahead.

5. These individuals then appealed against the High Court's decision (which is what makes them "the Appellants"). The case then went to the Court of Appeal, but the Court of Appeal agreed with the High Court.

So the Production Notice is still in force, and presumably the banks will be required to provide that information to the Singaporean Comptroller of Income Tax, who will then pass it on to the South Korean Government as a reply to the Exchange of Information request.

The media release gives a bit more information about what happened and why these decisions were made.