No puc evitar els miquels ni en somnis

No he dormit molt bé, probablement a causa de la sidra que vaig beure a Big Chicks. Els meus somnis no eran tant interessants, fora d'un: Estava en Alemanya, però en un restaurant on tothom parlava el castellà. Encara no em vaig decidir a dinar allí o no i estava posant al personal preguntes en castellà sobre els apats. Oferia un plat de fideus molt estrany que tenia un nome gairbé eslàvic i em semblava molt saborós, però no vaig trobar molt intel·ligible la descripció que em donaren. Per fi, vaig tenir l'idea per a preguntar cada u "¿Habla mejor el castellano o el catalan?" Quan tots em van dir "el català", vaig assajar parlar-hi en català, pero això no va tenir bon èxit: Em van quedar mocat, dient que parlava massa lentament, i van començar a dirigir-se a mi en anglès.

Zwischen Bayern und Neu Bremen

I don't know how many years I've owned an English translation of Börnstein's Die Geheimnisse von St. Louis, but I'm finally giving it another go. It owes a lot to Sue's model--and not in a good way. The translation, by contemporary Friedrich Münch, also leaves a lot to be desired. I've been thinking that I'd make better progress if I could find a copy of the German original.

The good news is, I have. The bad news is, it's online. I love having online texts to scan and peruse, but I hate reading them start to finish. At least it has cleared up some, ahem, mysteries while creating one or two more.

In Chapter 2, a deck hand oddly and awkwardly says "Calculate in this world he does not want any more rope." My first guess was that Börnstein was using the German cognate rechnen to render the folksy American English reckon; sure enough, the original text has "Rechne, dass er kein Seil auf dieser Welt mehr brauchen wird." Since rechnen has the primary meaning of "calculate", Münch chose the wrong equivalent for his English version.

A much odder alteration to explain is this one:

"Es ist der Gottlieb, der bairische Tölpel."
"It is Hans, the Bavarian blockhead."

Poor Gottlieb! Reckon he got so tired of hearing his Christian name massacred by English-speaking Americans that he finally ended up saying, "I begk, call me Hans."?

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