[Muckraker]

Originally Posted by Catlady

Oh, OK, I guess I'm bilingual then: I'm fluent in American English and I get by in British English.

I do too. So do many readers. But can you safely claim that the spell of the text--the suspension of disbelief--will remain unbroken when a young US reader encounters a "faggot tossed in the fire." Is it right to let new readers flounder when it is absolutely unnecessary?

I know the intended meaning but a line like that is still a hiccup in even my enjoyment of the text.

Maybe what mattered to him wasn't the size of his audience but precision of language. Maybe he wanted just this specific shade of meaning, and not that other ever-so-slightly different meaning. Sometimes there are words in other languages that cannot be precisely translated. But it doesn't matter why--it only matters that he made the choices he did, and you are not allowed to change them because you don't approve.

If I was republishing Eliot would you approve of me adding footnotes with the translations of non-English lines? Because his intention was clearly to not provide such information. Is it wrong for me to make his work more accessible to readers of today even though accessibility was not his intention?

And if that is the case, how can we justify the translation of any public domain material? We don't know that the author would have wanted an Arabic edition of his book. I think it's safer to assume a writer would want a word changed if its meaning drastically changes than assume a writer wants their work translated into a different language. Translation, after all, is not an exact science. It can significantly alter meaning

Faithfulness to what the author originally wrote. Recognition that language is changeable. Appreciation of the beauty of words. Expansion of one's understanding of the past.

My main point is that words are not as important as the ideas they represent and not all readers read to expand their understanding of the past. Some people read solely for pleasure and when the common definition of a single word has changed so drastically I see no problem changing that word to represent the idea the original writer intended so as to not throw a hiccup of unnecessary confusion in that pleasure reading.

We can assume a writer using the word "gay" two hundred years ago had no intention what-so-ever of it meaning anything other than what it meant two hundred years ago.

You KNOW the author would want the change? Are you channeling the author? You know only that YOU want the change.

Yes. Because I know the original writer and editor were good at what they did. And no competent writer or editor today, creating books for world readers, would purposely and knowingly use a word that didn't represent the idea they were trying to convey. I believe the dead writers were competent and would release updated editions themselves if they were alive today. The burden of proof is on those assuming they would let the confusion stand.