Denoting foreign language

[Xelebes]

«Types the angle quotes easily.»

 

[PennLady]

«Types the angle quotes easily.»

How did you do that? I mean, I can find the symbols in word and copy them but I can't just type them in a browser. Or are you using a Mac?

 

[elfin_odalisque]

Penn Lady, I come in peace!

I write a lot in French on an American keyboard. The 'angle brackets' that sr ignorantly refers to are 'guillemets' and can be typed as 'numeric keyboard, ALT+0171' to open, and '0187' to close.

French dialogue style is a zillion miles away from English (all countries) style.

In French fiction, a period of dialogue commences with guillemets but does not end that passage with closing guillemets until the whole conversation is over. Totally opposed to our anglo-saxon printing conventions.

There are no separators, beyond a comma, between speech and tag. Ongoing dialogue is given a new paragraph with an em-dash.

In writing foreign language in English fiction, there is a convention that sr seems ignorant of. You put any foreign dialogue you are using in Anglo-Saxon style rules - but in Italics - then decide whether you need to give a translation.

Despite our woeful language skills, I guess, 'J'aime, J'adore etc.' can be left in English.

For me, the traditional way of putting foreign language into English stories is either to let it lie in italics - assuming the readers understand - or immediately follow up with a translation - you can use the other party to avoid clumsiness.

Hope this helps.

 

[PennLady]

Penn Lady, I come in peace!

I write a lot in French on an American keyboard. The 'angle brackets' that sr ignorantly refers to are 'guillemets' and can be typed as 'numeric keyboard, ALT+0171' to open, and '0187' to close.

French dialogue style is a zillion miles away from English (all countries) style.

In French fiction, a period of dialogue commences with guillemets but does not end that passage with closing guillemets until the whole conversation is over. Totally opposed to our anglo-saxon printing conventions.

There are no separators, beyond a comma, between speech and tag. Ongoing dialogue is given a new paragraph with an em-dash.

In writing foreign language in English fiction, there is a convention that sr seems ignorant of. You put any foreign dialogue you are using in Anglo-Saxon style rules - but in Italics - then decide whether you need to give a translation.

Despite our woeful language skills, I guess, 'J'aime, J'adore etc.' can be left in English.

For me, the traditional way of putting foreign language into English stories is either to let it lie in italics - assuming the readers understand - or immediately follow up with a translation - you can use the other party to avoid clumsiness.

Hope this helps.

Hello, elfin.

Thanks for setting this out. I'll remember it and from now on, the guillemets are out. I didn't know their name, although I figured they had one, and to be fair sr did refer to them as such. Nor did I know the code for them -- thanks very much! I'll have to find more codes for e with accents, etc.

I think that, if only by coincidence, I followed the rules you cite, of putting the foreign language in italics. It'd be easier to explain by quoting passages, I realize, but I didn't want to take up too much time/space with it here. And of course I couldn't refer people to the original story since I took it down.

I believe that most of the French used without translation should be easy for people to figure out either from context, or from similar English words, or because they're common phrases such as you cited.

Thanks again.

PennLady

 

[Verdad]

Penn Lady, I come in peace!

I write a lot in French on an American keyboard. The 'angle brackets' that sr ignorantly refers to are 'guillemets' and can be typed as 'numeric keyboard, ALT+0171' to open, and '0187' to close.

French dialogue style is a zillion miles away from English (all countries) style.

In French fiction, a period of dialogue commences with guillemets but does not end that passage with closing guillemets until the whole conversation is over. Totally opposed to our anglo-saxon printing conventions.

There are no separators, beyond a comma, between speech and tag. Ongoing dialogue is given a new paragraph with an em-dash.

In writing foreign language in English fiction, there is a convention that sr seems ignorant of. You put any foreign dialogue you are using in Anglo-Saxon style rules - but in Italics - then decide whether you need to give a translation.

Despite our woeful language skills, I guess, 'J'aime, J'adore etc.' can be left in English.

For me, the traditional way of putting foreign language into English stories is either to let it lie in italics - assuming the readers understand - or immediately follow up with a translation - you can use the other party to avoid clumsiness.

Hope this helps.

In fairness, I think Pilot did refer to guillemets, while I used “angle quotes”—but I believe that’s an acceptable way of referring to them in English.

The colloquialism that might offend a purist consists in shortening “quotation marks” to “quotes”, but that is usually done in this connection, as well as in “duck-foot quotes”, which is another acceptable name for the same thing.

“Guillemets” is probably the best choice in the context of discussing a French text (rather than a text in some other language that uses the same style of quotation marks), but hey, so long as we understood each other.

 

[sr71plt]

Oh, Elfin just likes to rag on me. It makes her feel competent. Of course, she's usually a day late and a dollar shy on what she's ragging on me about--as she is here on guillemets. I used the term that was running on the thread, but later gave them the correct name. If I'd started out with the technical term, she would have posted that I was being a know-it-all.

She was also off base on criticizing me on the convention of rendering foreign terms in italics. That's exactly what I did in my example of how I would render Penn Lady's passage.

Elfin: "In writing foreign language in English fiction, there is a convention that sr seems ignorant of. You put any foreign dialogue you are using in Anglo-Saxon style rules - but in Italics - then decide whether you need to give a translation."

See my posting #3 on the thread, where I suggest doing exactly what Elfin (in the quote above) accuses me of not knowing.

Elfin just has the hots for me--and she don't read what others have posted none too good. With Elfin, you always need to consider the source and her motivation.

And she has no shame--she'll go on and do it again.

 

[Xelebes]

How did you do that? I mean, I can find the symbols in word and copy them but I can't just type them in a browser. Or are you using a Mac?

I'm using Canadian Multilingual settings on my PC. RCTRL+Z and RCTRL+X.

I can make all these other symbols:

¹²³¼½¾¤{}[]¬¡£€⅜⅝⅞™±¿˛˚¯˝ˇ˘×÷˙~´―łœ¶ŧ←↓→øþæßðŋħijĸŀ¢“”ʼnµ―˙ΩŁŒ®Ŧ¥↑ıØÞƧЪŊĦIJĿ©‘’♪º€«»^çèàéù

 

[Xelebes]

Oh, Elfin just likes to rag on me. It makes her feel competent. Of course, she's usually a day late and a dollar shy on what she's ragging on me about--as she is here on guillemets. I used the term that was running on the thread, but later gave them the correct name. If I'd started out with the technical term, she would have posted that I was being a know-it-all.

She was also off base on criticizing me on the convention of rendering foreign terms in italics. That's exactly what I did in my example of how I would render Penn Lady's passage.

Elfin: "In writing foreign language in English fiction, there is a convention that sr seems ignorant of. You put any foreign dialogue you are using in Anglo-Saxon style rules - but in Italics - then decide whether you need to give a translation."

See my posting #3 on the thread, where I suggest doing exactly what Elfin (in the quote above) accuses me of not knowing.

Elfin just has the hots for me--and she don't read what others have posted none too good. With Elfin, you always need to consider the source and her motivation.

And she has no shame--she'll go on and do it again.

She just might have you on ignore, you nitwit.

 

[sr71plt]

She just might have you on ignore, you nitwit.

Then she would obviously be the nitwit for commenting on what I did or did not post, right, dimwit?

 

[Xelebes]

Then she would obviously be the nitwit for commenting on what I did or did not post, right, dimwit?

What are you moaning about?

 

[sr71plt]

What are you moaning about?

Apparently about how dumb your post was.

 

[Xelebes]

Apparently about how dumb your post was.

Is that a hollow block being knocked I hear across the border?

 

[sr71plt]

Is that a hollow block being knocked I hear across the border?

No, it seems to be your empty bourbon bottle hitting the floor as you slump over in a drunken stupor.

You really don't realize how stupid your comment was?

 

[Xelebes]

No, it seems to be your empty bourbon bottle hitting the floor as you slump over in a drunken stupor.

You really don't realize how stupid your comment was?

You don't on yours either?

 

[sr71plt]

You don't on yours either?

No, of course not. Yours was about Elfin maybe having me on ignore but commenting on what I did or didn't post. What do you think my dumb post was?

 

[Xelebes]

No, of course not. Yours was about Elfin maybe having me on ignore but commenting on what I did or didn't post. What do you think my dumb post was?

That's because your hollow head can't quite grasp the concept that malodorous wanking on messageboards is not fun to read at all and that people opt to just ignore such and provide the information, even if superfluous, in a manner that does not hold the OP in contempt.

 

[sr71plt]

that people opt to just ignore such and provide the information, even if superfluous, in a manner that does not hold the OP in contempt.

Which is what I did in message #3. You yourself haven't posted anything here but wanking. Even your first post was off the wall. The question wasn't how to render a guillemets. It was whether to use them. You've been wanking here from the get go.

I also didn't ask Elfin to get flakey.

 

[Xelebes]

Which is what I did in message #3. You yourself haven't posted anything here but wanking. Even your first post was off the wall. The question wasn't how to render a guillemets. It was whether to use them. You've been wanking here from the get go.

I also didn't ask Elfin to get flakey.

Light humour wins you favours. Might I suggest you learn it.

 

[sr71plt]

Light humour wins you favours. Might I suggest you learn it.

I use it all the time on this forum. I got snaps for using it on the "Quiet as a" board today. May I take this to be your way to back out of an untenable position taken? I know it's a technique on the Internet to deflect by bringing up false assertions, but you aren't doing it very well.

So, you haven't decided to stop wanking here.

 

[Xelebes]

I use it all the time on this forum. I got snaps for using it on the "Quiet as a" board today. May I take this to be your way to back out of an untenable position taken? I know it's a technique on the Internet to deflect by bringing up false assertions, but you aren't doing it very well.

So, you haven't decided to stop wanking here.

You haven't stopped snapping at people, which is what malodorous wanking is.

 

[sr71plt]

You haven't stopped snapping at people, which is what malodorous wanking is.

Like you are snapping at me without provocation?

I agree you're being a malodorous wanker. That's all you've done on this thread. I've engaged on discussion on the topic.

You're just another Elfin, apparently. You backbiters are a real riot.

 

[Darkniciad]

You're going to make me dig into the back of the closet in the overstuffed back bedroom for my old boxes of comics, aren't you SR? *laugh*

If anybody else is trying to remember something specific that used this, one I can remember off the top of my head is the Wolverine mini-series ( 1982 ) A Spider-Man/Wolverine crossover that I can't remember the title of also used this quite a bit.

At least I believe it was a Wolverine crossover. I'm fairly certain that it was the issue with the death of the original Hobgoblin, Ned Leeds.

While it's true that comics ( at least Marvel ) have been using angle brackets to denote foreign language written in English for years, it's also preceded by a caption somewhere on the page where it's first used. Something along the lines of *Translated from the Japanese

The second problem is that people who read/have read comics are an ever shrinking minority, so understanding of the convention is going to be limited among the general reading populace.

It does work well for the intended purpose, though. Once pointed out once, you can read without a bump, as far as my experience goes. Mainstream publishers outside the comic industry probably resist for the same reason they resist everything else -- printing costs.

I don't see where it would cause any confusion amongst readers on Lit ( if pointed out in an author's note at the beginning of the story ), but I can understand why your editor wants to change it for pay publishing.

 

[sr71plt]

It doesn't exist in American style book and other prose publishing simply because the reader doesn't need to be hand held for this. I suspect the comic industry, if it's used there, does so just they have made false assumptions--and maybe because they don't read books.

 

[Darkniciad]

It doesn't exist in American style book and other prose publishing simply because the reader doesn't need to be hand held for this. I suspect the comic industry, if it's used there, does so just they have made false assumptions--and maybe because they don't read books.

In prose, the method you suggested works just fine, though I'm sure it gets cumbersome as hell if there's lots of switching back and forth.

Whether the switching is a good idea in the first place is another discussion.

In a comic book, the art replaces most of the narrative outside of dialogue. Having a quick, easy way to denote the difference between English and foreign language written in English ( often within the same panel ) inside the speech balloons across multiple pages saves critical space for the artwork to tell the rest of the story.

 

[sr71plt]

In prose, the method you suggested works just fine, though I'm sure it gets cumbersome as hell if there's lots of switching back and forth.

Whether the switching is a good idea in the first place is another discussion.

In a comic book, the art replaces most of the narrative outside of dialogue. Having a quick, easy way to denote the difference between English and foreign language written in English ( often within the same panel ) inside the speech balloons across multiple pages saves critical space for the artwork to tell the rest of the story.

I think that the point is that, on the rare occasion the language they are speaking has any significance, it's just explained in the context. In most cases, it doesn't make a hill of beans in the plotline what language they are speaking. And, as I've noted, the Chicago Manual of Style hasn't provided for the use of guillemets in published English-language prose.

Comics are a different world from fiction or nonfiction prose.

Even movies rarely do anything about the language issue. for the most part, they just give a phrase of the foreign language used at the beginning of the dialog and then drop into English. That's enough of a clue to the audience--and has been for a century. When it's meaningful to be in another language, they just do the same thing again or take care of it by someone noting somehow they switched to full English. There are a few movies that do the authentic language bit, and they are cumbersome and are few and far between.